Folk

Forms: 1–2 folc (pl. folc), 2 folche, Orm. follc, follk, 3 folck, south. volck, 3–4 folc, south. volc, volk, 3–6 folke, 3–8 fok(e, (5 fokke), 6 folck(e, 8 Sc. fouk, 3– folk. Also 3–4 wk. gen. folken(e. [OE. folc str. neut. = OFris. folk, OS. folc (Du. volk), OHG. folc neut., masc. (MHG. volc neut., masc., mod.Ger. volk neut.), ON. folk neut., people, army, detachment (Sw., Da. folk):—OTeut. *folko^m. The original sense is perh. best preserved in ON.; cf. OSl. plŭkŭ (Russ. полкь) division of an army, Lith. pulkas crowd, which are believed to be early adoptions from Teut.

  The view of some scholars, that the Teut. word and the L. vulgus both descend from a common type *qolgos, is very doubtful.]

  1.  A people, nation, race, tribe. Obs. exc. arch.

Beowulf, 1582 (Gr.).

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Gen. xxv. 23. Twa folc beoþ todæled on þe, & þæt folc oferswið þæt oþer folc.

1297.  R. Glouc. (1724), 3.

1388.  Wyclif, John xi. 48. Romayns schulen come, and schulen take our place and oure folk.

1535.  Coverdale, 2 Esdras v. 26. Amonge all y^e multitudes of folkes thou hast gotten the one people.

1850.  Neale, Med. Hymns (1867), 24.

  b.  transf. of animals. (After the Vulg. and Heb.)

1382.  Wyclif, Prov. xxx. 26. A litil hare, a folc vnmyȝti.

1535.  Coverdale, ibid. The conyes are but a feble folke [so 1611 and 1885 (R.V.)].

  2.  An aggregation of people in relation to a superior, e.g., God, a king or priest; the great mass as opposed to an individual; the people; the vulgar. Obs. exc. arch.

c. 888.  K. Ælfred, Boeth., xxx. § 1. Forþæm is ðæs folces hlisa ælcum men for nauht to habbenne.

971.  Blickl. Hom., 35. Swa swa ȝeara beboden wæs Godes folce.

c. 1250.  Gen. & Ex., 2785.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 12838 (Cott.).

c. 1375.  Lay Folks Mass Bk. (MS. B), 43.

1483.  Caxton, G. de la Tour, E vii b. Sente them in the said hoost of the Hebreux whiche were al folke of god to thende he sholde make them to falle in synne with them.

1549–62.  Sternhold & H., Ps. c. 247.

1863.  Longf., Wayside Inn, Olaf, VII.

1886.  Academy, 7 Aug., 85/2. In the fifteenth century it [the Catholic Church] did not hold back the Bible from the folk; and it gave them in the vernacular a long series of devotional works, which for language and religious sentiment have never been surpassed.

  † b.  (also pl.) Retainers, followers; servants, workpeople. Obs.

c. 1205.  Lay., 433.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 3053. Sir Dary it devysid and seȝis his foke faile.

1568.  Grafton, Chron., II. 377. He founde it kept by the Erle of Darbyes folkes, which had broken the bridge, and so stopt his passage.

1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), II. 71 b. Least my folkes labouring in some of them should come into the rest, contrarie to my pleasure.

1581.  G. Pettie, trans. Guazzo’s Civ. Conv. (1586), III. 170. The maister of the house: who ought not to open the way of vyces to those to whome hee may stop it, but rather to shewe himselfe more seuere towards his owne folke, then towards others.

1632.  J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Eromena, 68. The reasons that perswaded me to bring you hither, were your wounds and the ill plight of your Galley, wherein (wanting so many of your folke) you could not have defended your selfe from any one that had listed to injure you.

  3.  Men, people indefinitely. Also, people of a particular class, which is indicated by an adj. or some attributive phrase.

  From 14th c. onward the pl. has been used in the same sense, and since 17th c. is the ordinary form, the sing. being arch. or dial. The word is now chiefly colloq., being superseded in more formal use by people.

O. E. Chron., an. 999. Þa elkede man fram dæȝe to dæȝe, & swencte þæt earme folc þe on ðam scipon lagon.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 156. Vor te biweopen isleien uolc—þet is, mest al þe world.

1340.  Ayenb., 139. Þe benes and þe oreysons of guode uolke.

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XV. 360. Now failleth þe folke of þe flode · and of þe londe bothe.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 2035.

1413.  Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton), II. xlv. (1859), 51. Now byholde, and see with goode auysement vpon these folkes that thus ben defourmed.

c. 1430.  Diatorie, in Babees Bk., 58.

1450–1530.  Myrr. our Ladye, 311. The masse crede is to be sayd when folcke lye a dyenge.

a. 1500.  Gregory’s Chron. (Camd. Soc.), 155. Summys of v C men of armys or of folke of schotte [orig. gens de trait, i.e., archers].

1565.  T. Stapleton, Fortr. Faith, 126. Howseling of Christen folcke before deathe.

1619.  Crt. & Times Jas. I. (1849), II. 185–6. They played three pieces glick, as ordinary as folks use to play twopenny glick.

1710.  Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 71. I have heard wise folks say, An ill tongue may do much.

1727.  A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., I. xxiv. 297. There were Folks killed in 1723.

1756.  Mrs. Calderwood, Jrnl. (1884), 83. I find it was a great loss that I could not speak to the folks and ask questions, so that there are many things I could not inform myself of.

1774.  A. Adams, in J. Q. Adams’ Fam. Lett. (1876), 49. My health is much better than it was last fall; some folks say I grow very fat.

1774.  Franklin, Wks., 1887, V. 414. It was the ton with all the ministerial folks to abuse them and me, in every company, and in every newspaper.

1775.  Johnson, Lett. to Mrs. Thrale, 11 June. Folks want me to go to Italy, but I say you are not for it.

1845.  S. Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., II. 29. He is a bad man, for he is unkind to the poor folk.

1870.  Rossetti, Dante at Verona, Poems, 100.

1871.  Smiles, Charac., i. (1876), 25. The character of a nation is not to be learnt from its fine folks, its fine gentlemen and ladies; such you meet everywhere, and they are everywhere the same.

1879.  Browning, Martin Relph, 119.

1882.  Ouida, Maremma, I. 23. The hearts of the folk in Grosseto were sad for his fate.

  b.  Individual persons; individuals.

c. 1450.  Bk. Curtasye, 545, in Babees Bk. (1868), 317.

1504.  Bury Wills (Camden), 97. Substancyall folkys of the seid parych.

1641.  H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 35. The usuall manner is to sende out with everie waine three folkes, viz.: two men and a wooman; wheareof the one of the men is a loader, the other a forker, and the woman to rake after the waine.

1833.  Ht. Martineau Berkeley the Banker, I. ii. 31. Edgar can tell you how long it was before I could bring myself to think it prudent for these young folks to settle.

  4.  pl. (exc. dial.) The people of one’s family, parents, children, relatives.

1715.  Pattern to true love, in Halliwell, Yorksh. Anthol. (1851), 414.

1776.  J. Adams, in Fam. Lett. (1876), 203. ‘To be left at the Post Office,’ in your handwriting on the back of a few lines form the Dr. was all that I could learn of you and my little folks.

1828.  Carr, Craven Gloss. (ed. 2), 159. Folk, Family. ‘How’s yowyer folk.’

1833.  Ht. Martineau, Loom & Lugger, I. i. 15. Your young folks are flourishing, I hope?

  b.  dial. Friends, intimates.

1854.  Baker, Northampton Gloss., I. 250. ‘We’re not folks now.’

1881.  Leicestersh. Gloss., s.v. ‘They’d use to be such folks, I don’t know whativver’s made ’em two.’

  5.  attrib. and Comb., as † folk-king, † -need.

Beowulf, 2873 (Gr.).

c. 1205.  Lay., 9501. Fareð swide aȝe, to þan folc-kinge.

c. 1000.  Ags. Ps. lxxvii[i]. 14.

  b.  esp. in numerous mod. Combs. (formed after Ger. precedent) with the sense ‘of, pertaining to, current or existing among, the people’; as folk-belief, -custom, -literature, -name, -song, -speech, etc.

1850.  N. & Q., 1st Ser. II. 99/2. I believe that one item of ‘folk-faith’ is that ‘farm-yard odours are healthy.’

1864.  Reader, IV. 1 Oct., 407/1. The minute notices concerning medicine, architecture, and agriculture, the sports of children and the punishment of criminals, that are scattered through the pages of our mediæval biographers will increase our knowledge of the folk-life of the past in a manner little thought of by ordinary readers or writers of history.

1870.  W. E. A. Axon (title), Folk-Song & Folk-Speech of Lancashire.

1880.  J. Geikie, Prehist. Europe, 9. The passage from the true Stone Age into the Bronze Age may have been actually somewhat sudden, if, as is not altogether improbable, metallurgical knowledge came in with one of those great folk-waves which have successively swept over Europe.

1884.  Academy, XXV. 23 Feb., 126/2. Folk-law is astonishingly conservative.

1891.  Athenæum, 10 Oct., 486/3. His greatest obstacle is the argument of those who believe in the origin of folk-tales from the cultured, and their diffusion over distant countries by borrowing.

  6.  Special comb.: folk-etymology, usually, the popular perversion of the form of words in order to render it apparently significant; folk-free a., having the rights of a freeman; folk-leasing (OE. Law), public lying, slander; folk-stead (see quot. 1876).

1883.  G. Stephens, S. Bugge’s Stud. on N. Mythol., 28. It does not mend the matter, if, when we have no better argument, we call it *‘folk-etymology.’

a. 1000.  Laws Wihtræd, § 8. Gif man his mæn an wiofode freols ȝefe, se sie *folcfry.

1820.  Scott, Ivanhoe, xxxii. Folkfree and Sacless art thou in town, and from town, in the forest as in the field.

a. 1000.  Laws Ælf., § 32. Gif mon *folc leasunȝe ȝewyrce … him mon aceorfe þa tunȝan.

1771.  Burke, Powers of Juries in Prosecutions, Wks. X. 114. In the very early Saxon law, I see an offence of this species, called folk-leasing, make a capital offence.

a. 1000.  Beowulf, 76.

1876.  C. C. Robinson, Mid-Yorksh. Gloss., Folkstead, an outdoor place of assembly for general purposes. ‘The chapel wouldn’t hold them all, so they made a folkstead of the garth, and started a meeting there.’