folk
/foʊk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.22 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A people; a tribe or nation; the inhabitants of a region, especially the native inhabitants.
Archaic; Countable
adj
Of or pertaining to the inhabitants of a land, their culture, tradition, or history.
adj
Of or pertaining to common people as opposed to ruling classes or elites.
adj
Of or related to local building materials and styles.
adj
Believed or transmitted by the common people; not academically or ideologically correct or rigorous.
Example Sentences
- "The organization of each folk, as such, sprang mainly from war."
- "We thus arrive at a most unexpected imbroglio. The French have become a Germanic folk and the Germanic folk have become Gaulish!"
- "There were a lot of folk in the streets."
- "Young folk, old folk, everybody come / To our little Sunday School, and have a lot of fun."
- "“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes[…]. And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. […]”"
- "I need to call my folks back home."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *fulkazder. Proto-Germanic *fulką Proto-West Germanic *folk Old English folc Middle English folk English folk From Middle English folk, from Old English folc, from Proto-West Germanic *folk, from Proto-Germanic *fulką, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁-gós, from *pleh₁- (“to fill”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Foulk, West Frisian folk, Dutch volk, German Low German and German Volk, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish folk, Faroese and Icelandic fólk. Doublet of volk.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /foʊk/
- British English: /fəʊk/
Usage
Inflected Forms
folks (plural)
vok (alternative, dialectal)
volk (alternative, dialectal)
volge (alternative, dialectal)
volke (alternative, dialectal)
Vokes (alternative)