Origin and history of villain

c. 1300, as an insult (late 12c. as a surname), vilein, "base or low-born rustic," from Anglo-French and Old French vilain "peasant, farmer, commoner, churl, yokel" (12c.), from Medieval Latin villanus "farmhand," from Latin villa "country house, farm" (see villa).

Properly a bondsman, the lowest class of unfree persons under the feudal system (that sense is attested in English by late 14c.), hence generally and in contempt, "one low-born, a commoner lacking a gentleman's manners."

By mid-16c. this had sharpened to "scoundrel, man capable of gross wickedness," which also sometimes was used humorously or affectionately. The meaning "character in a novel, play, etc. whose evil motives or actions help drive the plot" is from 1822.

The most important phases of the sense development of this word may be summed up as follows: 'inhabitant of a farm; peasant; churl, boor; clown; miser; knave, scoundrel.' Today both Fr. vilain and Eng. villain are used only in a pejorative sense. [Klein]