Folk
adj, name, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A people; a tribe or nation; the inhabitants of a region, especially the native inhabitants. archaic, countable
"The organization of each folk, as such, sprang mainly from war."
- 2 the traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community wordnet
- 3 People, persons. collective, countable, plural, uncountable
"There were a lot of folk in the streets."
- 4 people in general (often used in the plural) wordnet
- 5 One’s relatives, especially one’s parents. collective, countable, plural, uncountable, usually
"I need to call my folks back home."
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 people descended from a common ancestor wordnet
- 7 Ellipsis of folk music. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable
- 8 a social division of (usually preliterate) people wordnet
- 1 Of or pertaining to the inhabitants of a land, their culture, tradition, or history. not-comparable
- 2 Of or pertaining to common people as opposed to ruling classes or elites. not-comparable
- 3 Of or related to local building materials and styles. not-comparable
- 4 Believed or transmitted by the common people; not academically or ideologically correct or rigorous. not-comparable
"folk psychology; folk linguistics"
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"That folk singer is very popular with people in general."
Etymology
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 German Volk, Dutch volk, Swedish folk and Danish folk. Doublet of volk.
* As a German surname, variant of Volk (“people, tribe”). * As an English surname, variant of Foulk, related to the noun folk, thus cognate with the above.
Related phrases
More for "folk"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.