rhizoverbBeta
DictionaryRoot: populus
Latin

populus

people or a community

Forms

  • populus
  • popul- — Used before other endings.

Origin

An old Latin word whose deeper origin is uncertain.

Note

It refers to a body of people; the identical-looking Latin tree-name has a different history.

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noun

people

PEE-pul/ˈpiːpl/

A community sharing a national or cultural identity.

The people gather beneath their national flag for a neighborhood meal.

Neighbors of several generations share a meal beneath American flags.
Etymology
peopleLatinpeople or a community

Latin populus could name a nation, its citizens, or a crowd. That collective range survives in English people, which treats human beings together as a group.

In context

Dwarkesh Patel31:38
In every group of human beings of hundreds of people—which is the size of a band—or sometimes a thousand people, they accumulate shared cultural knowledge about tools, life strategies
David Reich — How one small tribe conquered the world 70,000 years ago

More examples

  • Many peoples share this region.
  • She studies the art of the Maya people.
  • The treaty recognized the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Forms

people · peoples

Similar words

persons
More formal, often treating individuals separately.