Daily Ancestorcolonus
Colonus is Latin for a farmer, especially a tenant farmer who worked land held from a lord; it can also mean a settler.
Colonus means a farmer, especially a kind of tenant farmer or sharecropper, and also a colonist or inhabitant. The feminine is colona, and medieval writers also spelled it collonus.
In a register it gives the man's status, often that of a tenant farmer. Agricola and rusticus are other farm words you may see for the same family.
As seen in a recordLatin baptism register, Austria, 1780s
Joannes, filius Matthiae Pruckmayr, coloni, et Annae
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "colonus." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/latin/colonus. Last checked 2026-10-12.