a. Men and women of the country, rustics. † b. (with possessive) One’s own countrymen and countrywomen, compatriots: cf. COUNTRY-FOLK.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 6 b. Countrey people were alwayes preferred before the people of the Citie.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., I. iv. § 16. Talk but with Country-People.
1794. Miss Gunning, Packet, III. 193. Ordered to turn them against his own country people.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Goethe, Wks. (Bohn), I. 384. Practising on the prejudices and facility of country-people.
