It was almost unfair, he thought; ten true Bretonnians versus a mere thirty peasants and their puny gunpowder weapon.

He is no mere peasant.

Firearms were outlawed too--any mere peasant could kill a samurai with one, which made them too dangerous to have around.

Yet after long, increasingly furious attacks the boy-a mere half-trained peasant, at that!

He saw, too, how the mere peasants laboring in the fields did so in stout wool.

Tis a castle we must breach, not some mere peasant's hut.

The two "engineers" in charge of construction were "mere peasants".

Kalas scoffed, as if at the notion that any of his magnificent Allhearts could even be wounded by the likes of a mere peasant.

"Oh, the warlocks won't pay any attention to a mere peasant coming to market."

Some of these onlookers, to judge by the variety and brightness of their clothing, were no mere peasants and herdsmen.