folk means of or pertaining to the inhabitants of a land, their culture, tradition, or history. It carries an Arena rating of 1487, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, folk ranks #1,877 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #3,032 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,289 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #5,348 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
folk is pronounced /fəʊk/.
Why “folk” is a great word
Folk are the common people of a region, bound by shared tradition and a sense of place. From Old English folc ('common people, laity, nation, troop'), from Proto-Germanic *fulka- ('people, army'). Unlike 'people,' a neutral collective, or 'ethnic,' a category of shared ancestry, folk is the cultural sediment that settles in the lowlands and hollows. It is the melody whistled by a farmer walking a furrow, the pattern carved into a chairback by untutored hands, the ghost story told in the same crooked lane for three hundred years—the stubborn, unrecorded poetry of belonging.
Etymology
From Middle English folk, from Old English folc, from Proto-West Germanic *folk, from Proto-Germanic *fulką, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁-gós, from *pleh₁- (“to fill”). Cognate with German Volk, Dutch volk, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish folk, Icelandic fólk. Doublet of volk.
adj
- Of or pertaining to the inhabitants of a land, their culture, tradition, or history.
- Of or pertaining to common people as opposed to ruling classes or elites.
- Of or related to local building materials and styles.
- Believed or transmitted by the common people; not academically or ideologically correct or rigorous.e.g.“folk psychology; folk linguistics”
noun
- A people; a tribe or nation; the inhabitants of a region, especially the native inhabitants.e.g.“The organization of each folk, as such, sprang mainly from war.” — 1878-1880, John Richard Green, History of the English People:
- People, persons.e.g.“There were a lot of folk in the streets.”
- One’s relatives, especially one’s parents.e.g.“I need to call my folks back home.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- landfolk 68% match — The inhabitants of a region, especially if native. vs folk →
- folklore 64% match — The tales, legends, superstitions, and traditions of a particular ethnic population. vs folk →
- folkland 61% match — Land held in villeinage, being distributed among the folk, or people, at the pleasure of the lord of the manor, and taken back at his discretion. vs folk →
- clansfolk 60% match — Members of a clan; clanspeople. vs folk →
- folktale 59% match — A tale or story that is part of the oral tradition of a people or a place. vs folk →
- folkright 59% match — The common law or right of the people. vs folk →
- folklife 59% match — Folklore; those cultural traditions passed down orally or informally. vs folk →
- countryfolk 58% match — People who live in the country; rural dwellers. vs folk →