Pedestrian walks a double life: naming someone on foot AND dismissing anything dull. Both senses trace to Latin pedester (on foot; plain), from pēs (foot), PIE *ped-. The pejorative meaning is inherited from Roman social hierarchy where walking was common and riding was noble.
As a noun: a person walking rather than travelling in a vehicle. As an adjective: dull, uninspired, lacking imagination.
From Latin 'pedester' (going on foot; of infantry; plain, prosaic, unadorned), from 'pēs/pedis' (foot), from PIE *ped- (foot). The pejorative sense of pedestrian — dull, uninspired, commonplace — was already encoded in Classical Latin: 'pedester sermo' meant plain speech, prose as opposed to elevated verse. Roman social hierarchy reinforced this: 'equites' (knights, those who go by horse) were the noble class; 'pedites' (foot soldiers) were common infantry. Height and elevation were
The pejorative sense of 'pedestrian' — meaning dull — comes from Roman class hierarchy. Equites (knights) rode; pedites (foot soldiers) walked. This mapped onto literary criticism: poetry 'rode' with meter and elevation while prose merely 'walked.' Horace used pedester for humble prose. When English