Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Folk

Folk (fōk), Folks (fōks), n. collect. & pl. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. fōlk, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.] 1. (Eng. Hist.) In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [Obs.]

The organization of each folk, as such, sprang mainly from war. J. R. Green.

2. People in general, or a separate class of people; — generally used in the plural form, and often with a qualifying adjective; as, the old folks; poor folks. [Colloq.]

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales. Shak.

3. The persons of one's own family; as, our folks are all well. [Colloq. New Eng.] Bartlett.

Folk song, one of a class of songs long popular with the common people. — Folk speech, the speech of the common people, as distinguished from that of the educated class.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.