komornik

In 19th-century village records komornik means a peasant without land who lived in someone else's cottage, as a tenant. Old word lists translate it as tenant or poor peasant. The feminine is komornica, and the word comes from komora, a chamber.

The modern meaning is completely different: a court bailiff who collects debts. In medieval Poland the word also named a court official. In a parish register next to a village name, read it as the landless lodger, ranked below gospodarz.