Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Humans considered as a group or in indefinite numbers. Often treated as a plural of person, especially in compounds.
  • noun The mass of ordinary persons; the populace. Used with the.
  • noun A body of persons living in the same country under one national government; a nationality.
  • noun The citizens of a political unit, such as a nation or state; the electorate. Used with the.
  • noun A body of persons sharing a common religion, culture, or language.
  • noun Persons with regard to their residence, class, profession, or group.
  • noun Persons subordinate to or loyal to a ruler, superior, or employer.
  • noun A person's family, relatives, or ancestors.
  • noun Informal Animals or other beings distinct from humans.
  • transitive verb To settle or inhabit with people; populate.
  • transitive verb To be present in or on (a place).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The whole body of persons who compose a community, tribe, race, or nation: as, the people of England; the people of Israel.
  • noun The mass of persons inhabiting a place; subjects or citizens, as distinguished from their rulers or from men of rank or men of authority in any profession; the commonalty; the populace: usually preceded by the definite article: as, the king and the people; one of the people; the darling of the people.
  • noun Those who are closely connected with a person as subjects, domestics, attendants, followers, etc.; also, one's family, relatives, etc.: as, a pastor and his people.
  • noun Persons; any persons indefinitely; men: a collective noun taking a verb in the plural, and admitting in colloquial use a numeral adjective: as, people may say what they please; a number of country people were there; people of fashion; there were not ten people present.
  • noun Human beings; men.
  • noun A set or crowd; company.
  • noun Synonyms People, Nation, Race, Tribe, Clan. People stands for the ruled in distinction from the rulers, as king and people, or for the mass of the community, etc., without thought of any distinction between rulers and ruled. The word nation stands for a political body viewed as a whole. The unity may be ethnic, instead of political; this sense, however, is less common. Race is the most common word for all those who seem to make a whole in community of descent and are too numerous to be called a tribe, clan, or family: as, the Anglo-Saxon race is one branch of the Germanic, tracing its descent through certain Low German tribes. Tribe, apart from certain peculiar meanings, stands for a subdivision of a race: as, the twelve tribes of Israel; ordinarily the word is not applied to civilized persons; we speak of tribes of Indians, Arabs, Africans. Clan is used chiefly of the old organization of kinsmen among the Scotch Highlanders; where used of others, it expresses a similar organization, with intense loyalty and partizanship.
  • To stock with people or inhabitants; populate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The body of persons who compose a community, tribe, nation, or race; an aggregate of individuals forming a whole; a community; a nation.
  • noun Persons, generally; an indefinite number of men and women; folks; population, or part of population; ; -- sometimes used as an indefinite subject or verb, like on in French, and man in German.
  • noun The mass of community as distinguished from a special class; the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd.
  • noun One's ancestors or family; kindred; relations.
  • noun One's subjects; fellow citizens; companions; followers.
  • transitive verb To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Used as plural of person; a body of human beings considered generally or collectively; a group of two or more persons.
  • noun Persons forming or belonging to a particular group, such as a nation, class, ethnic group, country, family, etc; folk; community.
  • noun A group of persons regarded as being employees, followers, companions or subjects of a ruler.
  • noun One's colleagues or employees.
  • noun A person's ancestors, relatives or family.
  • noun The mass of a community as distinguished from a special class (elite); the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd; the citizens.
  • verb transitive To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate.
  • verb intransitive To become populous or populated.
  • verb transitive To inhabit; to occupy; to populate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the body of citizens of a state or country
  • verb furnish with people
  • noun (plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively
  • verb fill with people
  • noun members of a family line
  • noun the common people generally

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English peple, from Old French pueple, from Latin populus, of Etruscan origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English peple, peeple, from Anglo-Norman people, from Old French pueple, peuple, pople (modern French peuple), from Latin populus ("people"), of unknown origin. Probably of non-Indo-European origin, from Etruscan. Gradually ousted native Middle English lede, leed ("people") (from Old English lēode).

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Examples

  • 'Soldiers work for corporations, not for the people' yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = '\'Soldiers work for corporations, not for the people\' '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: Cheney and the rest of the draft dodgers who operated the single worst administration in US history made a decision to force troops into repeated deployments to Iraq.

    'Soldiers work for corporations, not for the people' 2009

  • From Nazism to Abu Ghraib to notorious lab psych experiments in which normal people set in oppressor roles become brutes, the proof is in: ���Nice people��� do evil things when conditions encourage it, and thin democracy���s extreme power imbalance is one proven condition.

    Frances Moore Lappe: Bush Isn���t the Problem: The Weakness of our Thin Democracy 2008

  • I also overheard people in a local Starbucks talk about voting for McCain because we can´t have one of ¨those people¨ as president.

    The True Issue In US Election 2008

  • In collecting data on traveling Americans 'we the people' have lost our country yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'In collecting data on traveling Americans \'we the people\' have lost our country '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: As I was thinking of these drivers licenses that Spitzer wants to give out to illegals, I thought to myself, we lost our country only to wake up to read where it will be legals that are being monitored.

    In collecting data on traveling Americans 'we the people' have lost our country 2007

  • Extensive districts of Ohio are still without inhabitants, yet its energetic people have constructed within a period of five years half as many miles of railroad as the whole of Great Britain contains; they are a “_great people_” they do

    The Englishwoman in America 2007

  • Maybe we should just turn a blind eye to Judas too and make him the patron saint of depressed people...oh wait..people are already doing that.

    Let It Be Terry Nelson 2006

  • You may not be asked to have theological debates with people but some people are..people like the Fathers who spoke and wrote against the heretics and sometimes used not so nice sounding words like this: A Saint can't remember his name came across a known public heretic of his day.

    Leaving Las Vegas Terry Nelson 2006

  • Yet today the public may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government “of, by, and for the people” to deliver on those aspirations.

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: Restoring the Public Trust 2006

  • Yet today the public may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government “of, by, and for the people” to deliver on those aspirations.

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: Restoring the Public Trust 2006

  • But also because it's important for people who want to save the world –people, I must confess, like me -- to be able to distinguish between the bathwater and the baby.

    Taking for Granted: Thoughts on America as Thanksgiving Approaches 2005

Comments

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  • ever since I was little I've said 'pee-oh-pull' in my head when I have to write the word

    August 21, 2007

  • ha ha ha thats funny

    October 26, 2011