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/foʊk/ Listen

noun

Folks, Folk n.

(Eng. Hist.) In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. (Obs.) "The organization of each folk, as such, sprang mainly from war."

People in general, or a separate class of people; generally used in the plural form, and often with a qualifying adjective; as, the old folks; poor folks. (Colloq.) "In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales."

The persons of one's own family; as, our folks are all well. (Colloq. New Eng.)

Folk song, one of a class of songs long popular with the common people.

Folk speech, the speech of the common people, as distinguished from that of the educated class.

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Etymology of 'Folk'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Folk" Quotes from Famous Books

... were filled with either jockeys or students. The gendarmes—who, by the way, were always to be found where the fighting was hottest—were the most unsuitably uniformed of all, for the blue coats and silver aiguillettes and towering bearskins which served to impress the simple country-folk made splendid targets for the German marksmen. This medley of picturesque and brilliant uniforms was wonderfully effective, of course, and whenever I came upon a group of lancers in sky-blue and yellow lounging about the door of a wayside tavern ...

— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... port, which has two basins and is accessible only to vessels of light tonnage, had a certain gaiety and as much local colour as you please. Fisher-folk of picturesque type were strolling about, most of them Bretons; several of the men with handsome, simple faces, not at all brutal, and with a splendid brownness—the golden-brown colour on cheek and beard ...

— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... as if Mrs. Wix had told her, that what this lady had come over for was not merely to be chaffed and to hear her pupil chaffed; not even to hear Sir Claude, who knew French in perfection, imitate the strange sounds emitted by the English folk at the hotel. It was perhaps half an effect of her present renovations, as if her clothes had been somebody's else: she had at any rate never produced such an impression of high colour, of a redness associated in Maisie's mind at THAT pitch either with measles or with "habits." ...

— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... sometimes," said Sally, nudging Mr Davis, as they rose from their knees at last. "I make no doubt there was as grand a sermon in yon paper-book as ever we hear in church. I've heard him pray uncommon fine—quite beyond any but learned folk." ...

— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... said this term came from telephone company usage, in which "bugs in a telephone cable" were blamed for noisy lines, but this appears to be an incorrect folk etymology. Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better known for inventing {COBOL}) liked to tell a story in which a technician solved a persistent {glitch} in the Harvard Mark II machine by pulling ...

— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

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