A phrase originated by the Quakers, to signify persons not belonging to their society, and afterwards adopted by some other sects.
1714. Thomas Dell and Edward Moor [were discharged in 1683] by people of the world paying their fines and fees.—‘Autobiography of Thomas Ellwood,’ last page.
1814. If a quaker love a lady out of the society, he must ask liberty, and pardon for the sin of loving one of the world’s people.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 19 (Boston, 1824).
1824. He looks vastly as if he took a pretty stiff horn, now and then, of that kind of spiritous liquor which the world’s people call brandy.—The Microscope, Albany, April 17.
1840. I do n’t care about the rain, Jeremiah; let us walk as fast as we can, until we get to the house where the world’s people live.—Knick. Mag., xvi. 24 (July).
1842. She had become acquainted with “a number of world’s people.”—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘Forest Life,’ ii. 24.
1856. Well, Gideon, thee is one of the world’s people, and have (sic) strange ways.—Knick. Mag., xlvii. 322 (March).
1856. Cousin Amelia—it ’s a great pity that you ’re a worldling—one of the world’s people—given up to the pomps and vanities and that sort of thing, you know.—Id., xlviii. 504 (Nov.).
1862. We of the Latter Day Church think much of such associations; more I suppose than you world’s people.—Theodore Winthrop, ‘John Brent,’ p. 116 (N.Y., 1876).
1866. These smiths in the forge by the roadway are World’s people.—W. H. Dixon, ‘New America,’ ch. xliii.
