| / English Dictionary |
FOLK
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community
Synonyms:
ethnic music; folk; folk music
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("folk" is a kind of...):
popular music; popular music genre (any genre of music having wide appeal (but usually only for a short time))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folk"):
folk ballad; folk song; folksong (a song that is traditionally sung by the common people of a region and forms part of their culture)
schottische (music performed for dancing the schottische)
C and W; country and western; country music (a simple style of folk music heard mostly in the southern United States; usually played on stringed instruments)
gospel; gospel singing (folk music consisting of a genre of a cappella music originating with Black slaves in the United States and featuring call and response; influential on the development of other genres of popular music (especially soul))
square-dance music (music performed for square dancing)
Sense 2
Meaning:
People in general (often used in the plural)
Example:
the common people determine the group character and preserve its customs from one generation to the next
Synonyms:
common people; folk; folks
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("folk" is a kind of...):
people ((plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively)
Meronyms (members of "folk"):
pleb; plebeian (one of the common people)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folk"):
country people; countryfolk (people raised in or living in a rural environment; rustics)
gentlefolk (people of good family and breeding and high social status)
grass roots (the common people at a local level (as distinguished from the centers of political activity))
home folk (folks from your own home town)
rabble; ragtag; ragtag and bobtail; riffraff (disparaging terms for the common people)
Sense 3
Meaning:
People descended from a common ancestor
Example:
his family has lived in Massachusetts since the Mayflower
Synonyms:
family; family line; folk; kinfolk; kinsfolk; phratry; sept
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("folk" is a kind of...):
ancestry; blood; blood line; bloodline; descent; line; line of descent; lineage; origin; parentage; pedigree; stemma; stock (the descendants of one individual)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folk"):
people (members of a family line)
homefolk (the people of your home locality (especially your own family))
house (aristocratic family line)
dynasty (a sequence of powerful leaders in the same family)
gens; name (family based on male descent)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A social division of (usually preliterate) people
Synonyms:
folk; tribe
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("folk" is a kind of...):
social group (people sharing some social relation)
Meronyms (members of "folk"):
moiety (one of two basic subdivisions of a tribe)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "folk"):
phyle (a tribe of ancient Athenians)
Context examples:
Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Run down, my dear fellow, and open the door, for all virtuous folk have been long in bed.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I bid you have a care, master, or there will be some one-eyed folk along the road you drive.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yes, sir, he seems a little lonely, and young folks would do him good perhaps.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
"Some does one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get on as they can."
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
There are just some narrow water-lanes along which folk travel, and outside that it is all darkness.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It's nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy, when they're new to these here trials, and timid, like my little bird,—it's nat'ral.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She apprehended some mischief would happen to me from rude vulgar folks, who might squeeze me to death, or break one of my limbs by taking me in their hands.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Young folks in their situation should be excused complying with the common forms.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained the brow of the ascent.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
