People

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: peo=ple

CIDE DICTIONARY

People, n. [OE. peple, people, OF. pueple, F. peuple, fr. L. populus. Cf. Populage, Public, Pueblo.].

•  The body of persons who compose a community, tribe, nation, or race; an aggregate of individuals forming a whole; a community; a nation.  [1913 Webster]

  " 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."  [1913 Webster]

  "Unto him shall the gathering of the people be."  [1913 Webster]

  "The ants are a people not strong."  [1913 Webster]

  "Before many peoples, and nations, and tongues."  [1913 Webster]

  "Earth's monarchs are her peoples."  [1913 Webster]

  "A government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  "People were tempted to lend by great premiums."  [1913 Webster]

  "People have lived twenty-four days upon nothing but water."  [1913 Webster]
•  The mass of community as distinguished from a special class; the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd; as, nobles and people.  [1913 Webster]

  "And strive to gain his pardon from the people."  [1913 Webster]
•  One's ancestors or family; kindred; relations; as, my people were English.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- People, Nation.

People, v. t. [Cf. OF. popler, puepler, F. puepler. Cf. Populate.].

 To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate.  Dryden.  [1913 Webster]
"As the gay motes that people the sunbeams."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

People, n. & v.
--n.
1 (usu. as pl.) a persons composing a community, tribe, race, nation, etc. (the English people; a warlike people; the peoples of the Commonwealth). b a group of persons of a usu. specified kind (the chosen people; these people here; right-thinking people).
2 (prec. by the; treated as pl.) a the mass of people in a country etc. not having special rank or position. b these considered as an electorate (the people will reject it).
3 parents or other relatives (my people are French).
4 a subjects, armed followers, a retinue, etc. b a congregation of a parish priest etc.
5 persons in general (people do not like rudeness).
--v.tr. (usu. foll. by with)
1 fill with people, animals, etc.; populate.
2 (esp. as peopled adj.) inhabit; occupy; fill (thickly peopled).

Idiom

people's democracy a political system, esp. in E. Europe, with power regarded as invested in the people.

Etymology

ME f. AF poeple, people, OF pople, peuple, f. L populus

THESAURUS

People

Everyman, John Doe, Public, Richard Roe, agnate, ancestors, ancestry, anchor, animal kingdom, assembly, billet at, bivouac, blood, blood relation, blood relative, bodies, body politic, bourgeoisie, breed, brethren, brood, burrow, camp, children, churchgoers, citizenry, clan, clansman, class, cognate, collateral, collateral relative, colonize, come to anchor, common man, common people, commonage, commonality, commonalty, commoners, commonwealth, community, community at large, congregation, connections, consanguinean, constituency, consumers, cultural community, deme, demos, denizen, distaff side, distant relation, domesticate, drop anchor, dwellers, empeople, enate, ensconce, establish residence, estate, everybody, everyman, everyone, everywoman, family, flesh, flesh and blood, flock, fold, folk, folks, forebears, general public, gens, gentry, german, get, grass roots, habitancy, hearth, hive, hoi polloi, homefolks, house, household, inhabit, inhabitants, issue, keep house, kin, kind, kindred, kinfolk, kinnery, kinsfolk, kinsman, kinsmen, kinswoman, kith and kin, laity, laymen, line, lineage, linguistic community, live at, locate, masses, matriclan, men, menage, minyan, mobile vulgus, moor, mortals, move, multitude, nation, nationality, near relation, nest, next of kin, nonclerics, nonordained persons, occupy, offspring, order, parish, parishioners, park, patriclan, people at large, people in general, perch, persons, phratry, phyle, plant, plant kingdom, plebeians, plebes, polity, populace, populate, population, posterity, proletariat, public, race, ragtag and bobtail, rank and file, relations, relatives, relocate, reside, roost, seculars, sept, set up housekeeping, set up shop, settle, settle down, settle in, sheep, sib, sibling, silent majority, sit down, society, spear kin, spear side, species, speech community, spindle kin, spindle side, squat, stand, state, stay at, stem, stirps, stock, strain, strike root, subjects, sword side, take residence at, take root, take up residence, tenant, the citizenry, the crowd, the general public, the people, the populace, the population, the public, third estate, totem, tribe, tribesman, uterine kin, whole people, world, you and me

ROGET THESAURUS

People

Multitude

VB be numerous, swarm with, teem with, creep with, crowd, swarm, come thick upon, outnumber, multiply, people, swarm like locusts, swarm like bees.

Presence

VB exist in space, be present, assister, make one of, make one at, look on, attend, remain, find oneself, present oneself, show one's face, fall in the way of, occur in a place, lie, stand, occupy, be there, people, inhabit, dwell, reside, stay, sojourn, live, abide, lodge, nestle, roost, perch, take up one's abode, tenant, resort to, frequent, haunt, revisit, fill, pervade, permeate, be diffused, be disseminated, be through, over spread, overrun, run through, meet one at every turn.

Inhabitant

N inhabitant, resident, residentiary, dweller, indweller, addressee, occupier, occupant, householder, lodger, inmate, tenant, incumbent, sojourner, locum tenens, commorant, settler, squatter, backwoodsman, colonist, islander, denizen, citizen, burgher, oppidan, cockney, cit, townsman, burgess, villager, cottager, cottier, cotter, compatriot, backsettler, boarder, hotel keeper, innkeeper, habitant, paying guest, planter, native, indigene, aborigines, autochthones, Englishman, John Bull, newcomer, aboriginal, American, Caledonian, Cambrian, Canadian, Canuck, downeaster, Scot, Scotchman, Hibernian, Irishman, Welshman, Uncle Sam, Yankee, Brother Jonathan, garrison, crew, population, people, colony, settlement, household, mir, indigenous, native, natal, autochthonal, autochthonous, British, English, American, Canadian, Irish, Scotch, Scottish, Welsh, domestic, domiciliated, domiciled, naturalized, vernacular, domesticated, domiciliary, in the occupation of, garrisoned by, occupied by.

Laity

N laity, flock, fold, congregation, assembly, brethren, people, society, temporality, secularization, layman, civilian, parishioner, catechumen, secularist, secular, lay, laical, civil, temporal, profane.

Mankind

N man, mankind, human race, human species, human kind, human nature, humanity, mortality, flesh, generation, anthropology, anthropogeny, anthropography, anthroposophy, ethnology, ethnography, humanitarian, human being, person, personage, individual, creature, fellow creature, mortal, body, somebody, one, such a one, some one, soul, living soul, earthling, party, head, hand, dramatis personae, quidam, people, persons, folk, public, society, world, community, community at large, general public, nation, nationality, state, realm, commonweal, commonwealth, republic, body politic, million, population, tribe, clan (paternity), family (consanguinity), cosmopolite, lords of the creation, ourselves, human, mortal, personal, individual, national, civic, public, social, cosmopolitan, anthropoid, am I not a man and a brother?.