Also 7 canaile, cannale, 8 kennel, 9 Sc. cannailyie, canalyie. [a. F. canaille, ad. It. canaglia (Sp. canalla, Pg. canalha), f. cane, L. can-is dog, with collective suffix, lit. ‘pack of dogs.’ In 17th and 18th c. app. naturalized; now again consciously used as French. The It. form was in earlier use: see prec.]
A contemptuous name given to the populace; the ‘vile herd,’ vile populace; the rabble, the mob.
1676. Etheredge, Man of Mode, V. i. 78. Let the Canaile wait as they should do.
1679. Penn, Addr. Prot., I. 26. This Shameful Impiety … has not only prevailed with the Populace, the Cannale, the Vulgar.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), II. 73. Faulty morals deservedly … bring down rank and birth to the canaille.
1792. Gentl. Mag., LXII. I. 6. Like true Canaille … literally, a parcel of Dogs.
1805. J. Nicol, Poems, I. 37 (Jam.). The hale cannailyie, risin, tried In vain to end their gabblin.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil, 103. Railroads … and manufactories … are enterprises for the canaille, and I hate them in my heart.
b. A pack.
1688. Fears & Jeal. Ceas’d, 4. A most Powerful Party of the Nation furiously enrag’d against the whole Canaille of these Miscreants, took compassion on their sufferings.
