people
noun · verb
Form of person , plural of person.
Simple meaning
Any group of human beings collectively.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
peepuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpipəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
plural
Any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively
People in general, humans, by extension sentient beings real or fictional.
countablecollective
Persons forming or belonging to a particular group, such as a nation, class, ethnic group, country, family, etc.
A group of persons regarded as being servants, followers, companions or subjects of a ruler or leader.
The mass of a community as distinguished from a special class (elite); the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd; the citizens.
A person's ancestors, relatives or family.
verb
transitive
To inhabit; to occupy; to populate.
intransitive
To become populous or populated.
transitive
To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate.
“Stalin wanted to people the empty steppes.”
Furnish with people
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively
Used this way, people is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use people
- “His people have been farmers for generations.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The human beings of a particular nation or community or ethnic group.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The class of people exerting power or authority.
A terrorist organization in South Africa formed in 1996 to fight drug lords.
The people of the Netherlands.
The people of England.
A youth subculture (mostly from the middle class) originating in San Francisco in the 1960s.
People who are free.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: any group of human beings (men or women
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.