The story
- Dutch · borrowed fromboer“peasant”
- English todayboor
Borrowed from Dutch boer (“peasant”). Doublet of bauer, Boer, and bower (“peasant, farmer”). For the meaning development from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH-, compare with other derived from this term Russian обыва́тель (obyvátelʹ, “the average man/citizen, the man in the street, philistine, resident, inhabitant”), Polish bydło (“cattle, rabble”) (whence Russian бы́дло (býdlo, “rabble, uncultured or stupid people, sheeple”)). Compare typologically with pagan (see more).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.