populace

English

Etymology

From Middle French populace, from Italian popolaccio.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒpjʊləs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) enPR: päpʹyə-ləs, IPA^(key): /ˈpɑpjələs/
• Homophone: populous

Noun

populace (countable and uncountable, plural populaces)

1. The common people of a nation.

   The populace despised their ignorant leader.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎^[1]:

     Throughout the 1500s, the populace roiled over a constellation of grievances of which the forest emerged as a key focal point. The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.

2. The inhabitants of a nation.
   • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chester (1848)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57:

     Thomas Brassey (1805-70) should be equally famous, yet he is unknown to swathes of the greater populace. His plaque is at Chester.

Usage notes

• Do not confuse populace (a noun) with populous (an adjective).
• The Latin word populus, which means nearly the same thing, is sometimes erroneously used for populace in English writing.

Synonyms

• (common people of a nation): common people, hoi polloi, masses, people, rabble, riff-raff
• (inhabitants of a nation): inhabitants, population

Translations

common people

• Catalan: poble (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 民眾／民众 (zh) (mínzhòng), 齊民／齐民 (zh) (qímín), 庶民 (zh) (shùmín)

• Dutch: plebs (nl) n
• Esperanto: popolamaso
• French: bas peuple m, plèbe (fr) f (pejorative), populace (fr) f (pejorative)
• German: gemeine Volk n, breite Masse f, Pöbel (de) m (pejorative)
• Italian: pubblico (it) m, popolo (it) m
• Japanese: 民衆 (ja) (みんしゅう, minshū), 大衆 (ja) (たいしゅう, taishū), 庶民 (ja) (しょみん, shomin)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: xelk (ku) m

• Latin: populus (la) m
• Malayalam: ജനം (ml) (janaṁ)
• Plautdietsch: Bevelkjarunk f
• Portuguese: povão (pt) m (pejorative), povo (pt) m
• Punjabi: ਜਨਤਾ f (jantā)
• Russian: просто́й наро́д m (prostój naród), (широ́кие) ма́ссы (ru) f pl (mássy), простонаро́дье (ru) n (prostonaródʹje), толпа́ (ru) f (tolpá) ("crowd"), чернь (ru) f (černʹ) (pejorative), сброд (ru) m (sbrod) (pejorative), бы́дло (ru) n (býdlo) (pejorative)
• Spanish: populacho (es) m (pejorative), pueblo (es) m
• Tibetan: མི་དམངས (mi dmangs)
• Turkish: cumhur (tr)

inhabitants of a nation — see population

References

• “populace”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈpopulat͡sɛ]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: po‧pu‧la‧ce

Noun

populace f (related adjective populační)

1. population

Declension

Declension of populace (soft feminine)

	singular	plural
nominative	populace	populace
genitive	populace	populací
dative	populaci	populacím
accusative	populaci	populace
vocative	populace	populace
locative	populaci	populacích
instrumental	populací	populacemi

Derived terms

• populační

 

Further reading

• “populace”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “populace”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “populace”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian popolazzo.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɔ.py.las/

Noun

populace f (plural populaces)

1. (derogatory) populace, common people

   Synonym: plèbe

Related terms

• peuple

Further reading

• “populace”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.