Intellectual property law has come for the word 'Meeple'
If you're in any proximity to board game culture, you're probably aware of meeples—those stylized little wooden figure guys, popularized by Carcassonne and worker placement games that followed, to the point that they've become a kind of omnipresent cultural icon for board games as a whole. There's a custom meeple cottage industry. There are meeple-themed board game cafes. There are dozens of board games with «meeple» in the title. Meeples are for the people.