Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The common people of a society or region considered as the representatives of a traditional way of life and especially as the originators or carriers of the customs, beliefs, and arts that make up a distinctive culture.
- noun Archaic A nation; a people.
- noun Informal People in general.
- noun People of a specified group or kind.
- noun One's parents.
- noun The members of one's family or childhood household; one's relatives.
- adjective Of, occurring in, or originating among the common people.
- idiom (just folks) Down-to-earth, open-hearted.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun People, considered either distributively or collectively.
- noun plural Persons mentally classed together as forming a special group: with a qualifying adjective or clause: in this use chiefly colloquial and generally in the form folks; as, old folks; young folks; poor folks.
- noun The people as an aggregate; the common people: in this use without a plural form.
- noun An aggregate or corporate body of persons; a people; a nation: as singular folk, as plural folks (but rare in the plural).
- noun plural friends: as, we are not folks now.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Eng. Hist.), obsolete In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe.
- noun colloq. People in general, or a separate class of people; -- generally used in the plural form, and often with a qualifying adjective
- noun Colloq. New Eng. The persons of one's own family.
- noun one of a class of songs long popular with the common people.
- noun the speech of the common people, as distinguished from that of the educated class.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the
inhabitants of a land, theirculture ,tradition , orhistory . - adjective Of or pertaining to
common people as opposed to ruling classes orelites . - noun archaic A grouping of smaller
peoples ortribes as anation . - noun The inhabitants of a
region especially thenative inhabitants. - noun One’s
relatives especially one’sparents . - noun music
Folk music . - noun plural
People in general. - noun plural A particular group of people.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun people descended from a common ancestor
- noun the traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community
- noun a social division of (usually preliterate) people
- noun people in general (often used in the plural)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word folk.
Examples
-
At this point, what does the term "folk music" really mean?
News 2011
-
We use the term folk varieties in support of the efforts of Third World countries and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to have these varieties recognized as a part of the
-
Q: The term folk hero has been thrown around a bit.
-
The term folk etymology covers suggestions of the theos-deus
OUPblog 2009
-
He seems genuinely surprised by this, and he offers three examples of what he calls "folk wisdom" about the crisis that lack, he notes, empirical evidence: that investors were led astray by devotion to the efficient-market hypothesis, particularly on real estate; that Wall Street pay focused on short-term trading profits rather than long-term incentives; and that investment banks boosted their leverage in the years leading up to the crisis.
Robert Teitelman: Andrew Lo and the Wisdom of Reading 21 Crisis Books Robert Teitelman 2012
-
He seems genuinely surprised by this, and he offers three examples of what he calls "folk wisdom" about the crisis that lack, he notes, empirical evidence: that investors were led astray by devotion to the efficient-market hypothesis, particularly on real estate; that Wall Street pay focused on short-term trading profits rather than long-term incentives; and that investment banks boosted their leverage in the years leading up to the crisis.
Robert Teitelman: Andrew Lo and the Wisdom of Reading 21 Crisis Books Robert Teitelman 2012
-
He seems genuinely surprised by this, and he offers three examples of what he calls "folk wisdom" about the crisis that lack, he notes, empirical evidence: that investors were led astray by devotion to the efficient-market hypothesis, particularly on real estate; that Wall Street pay focused on short-term trading profits rather than long-term incentives; and that investment banks boosted their leverage in the years leading up to the crisis.
Robert Teitelman: Andrew Lo and the Wisdom of Reading 21 Crisis Books Robert Teitelman 2012
-
The masses operate on the basis of what I call folk beliefs.
Caplan vs. Sowell, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
-
The masses operate on the basis of what I call folk beliefs.
Caplan vs. Sowell, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
-
Nevertheless, that Burns could forswear his encounters with the folk is as likely as that Tam could swear off drink or cutty-sarks.
National Demons: Robert Burns, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Folk in the Forest 2006
treeseed commented on the word folk
The Folk or The Good Folk are respectful terms for fairies.
February 17, 2008