Polis
name, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A Greek city-state. historical
"By the end of the century, poleis had been established throughout the Hellenic world, all bearing a marked family resemblance."
- 2 The police. Geordie, Ireland, Scotland, uncountable
"Even in his Ma's womb, you would have had to define Spud less as a foetus, more as a set of dormant drug and personality problems. He'd probably draw the polis onto them through knocking a saltcellar out of the Little Chef."
- 3 A police officer. Geordie, Ireland, Scotland, countable
- 1 A town and municipality of Paphos district, Cyprus; in full, Polis Chrysochous.
- 2 A surname.
"Don't even think about the odds that Bobby Schmautz of Vancouver Canucks would score the winning goal or that Greg Polis of Pittsburgh Penguins would win the car."
Example
More examples"Puran Polis are made using jaggery."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tpelH- Proto-Hellenic *ptólis Ancient Greek πόλις (pólis)lbor. English polis Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πόλις (pólis, “fortified town; city state”).
Borrowed from Scots polis. Doublet of police, policy, and polity.
Related phrases
More for "polis"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.