PEOPLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of People

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/pˈipəl/ Listen

noun

People n.

1.

The body of persons who compose a community, tribe, nation, or race; an aggregate of individuals forming a whole; a community; a nation. "Unto him shall the gathering of the people be." "The ants are a people not strong." "Before many peoples, and nations, and tongues." "Earth's monarchs are her peoples." "A government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people." Note: Peopleis a collective noun, generally construed with a plural verb, and only occasionally used in the plural form (peoples), in the sense of nations or races.

2.

Persons, generally; an indefinite number of men and women; folks; population, or part of population; as, country people; sometimes used as an indefinite subject or verb, like on in French, and man in German; as, people in adversity. "People were tempted to lend by great premiums." "People have lived twenty-four days upon nothing but water."

3.

The mass of community as distinguished from a special class; the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd; as, nobles and people. "And strive to gain his pardon from the people."

4.

With a possessive pronoun:

(a)

One's ancestors or family; kindred; relations; as, my people were English.

(b)

One's subjects; fellow citizens; companions; followers. "You slew great number of his people."

Synonyms: People, Nation. When speaking of a state, we use people for the mass of the community, as distinguished from their rulers, and nation for the entire political body, including the rulers. In another sense of the term, nation describes those who are descended from the same stock; and in this sense the Germans regard themselves as one nation, though politically subject to different forms of government.

verb

People v. t. (past & past part. peopled; pres. part. peopling) To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate. "Peopled heaven with angels." "As the gay motes that people the sunbeams."

See images of 'People'

Etymology of 'People'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"People" Quotes from Famous Books

... a very simple rule That every one should know; You may not hear of it in school, But everywhere you go, In every land where people dwell, And men are good and true, You'll find they understand it well, And so ...

— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess

... was to turn back, to quit. That is always my first impulse. The instincts of my bourgeois ancestry against the unusual, the impractical,—the safe-and-sane conservatism of the farmers and clerks and small business men bred in my people ...

— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... of Salem in 1796. Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died in a foreign land when his son was only four years old; his mother lived for forty years after the death of her husband the life of a recluse in her own house. The family's star was in the decline and the people of Salem looked on Nathaniel as a lazy and very queer boy. He grew up in a unique solitude. During these years of seclusion Hawthorne acquired the habit of keeping silent on all occasions, and reading a few books ...

— Short-Stories • Various

... under his breath, "is the most heavenly—the most wonderful thing that ever came into my life! I'm not worthy of it. But God knows that I will take care of you, Sue, and, long before I take you to New York, to my own people, these days will be only a troubled dream. You will ...

— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... been haunted with an ever-recurring temptation, which, instead of dismissing it, she kept like a dog in a string. Different kinds of evil affect people differently. Ten thousand will do a dishonest thing, who would indignantly reject the dishonest thing favored by another ten thousand. They are not sufficiently used to its ugly face not to dislike ...

— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

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