police
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
puhleesSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pəˈlis
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
usually plural only
The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers; (regional, chiefly US, Caribbean, Jamaica, Scotland, countable) an individual police officer.
uk
A branch of the Home Office responsible for general law enforcement within a specific territory.
law enforcement
A constituted body of officers representing the civil authority of government, empowered to maintain public order and safety, enforce the law, and prevent, detect, and investigate crime.
AustraliaNew Zealand
Any of the formally enacted law enforcement agencies at various levels of government.
verb
transitivefigurative
To enforce norms or standards upon.
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: The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers; (regional, chiefly US, Caribbean, Jamaica, Scotland, countable) an individual police officer.
Used this way, police 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
Nearby words
- law , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
- patrol , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A plan of action adopted by an individual or social group.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A policeman in charge of a precinct.
A car in which policemen cruise the streets.
A policeman in charge of a precinct.
A civil commissioner appointed to supervise the duties and discipline of the police.
A police officer of the lowest rank.
A court that has power to prosecute for minor offenses and to bind over for trial in a superior court anyone accused of serious offenses.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A member of a police force.
A member of the military police who polices soldiers and guards prisoners.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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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.