From Latin 'vīlla' (country estate) → Medieval Latin 'villānus' (farmworker) → Anglo-Norman 'vilein' (serf). Originally meant 'peasant' with zero moral connotation. Aristocratic contempt gradually equated low birth with wickedness, transforming a farmer into an evildoer — class prejudice fossilized in language.
A character in a story or play whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot; a person guilty of or likely to commit great crimes.
From Anglo-Norman 'vilein', from Medieval Latin 'villānus' (farmhand, serf), from Latin 'vīlla' (country house, farm estate). Originally, a 'villain' was simply a person who worked on a villa — a peasant farmer. The word carried no moral