people

1 of 2

noun

peo·ple ˈpē-pəl

plural people

plural : human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest

plural : human beings, persons

—often used in compounds instead of persons

salespeople

—often used attributively

people skills

plural : the members of a family or kinship

plural : the mass of a community as distinguished from a special class

disputes between the people and the nobles

—often used by Communists to distinguish Communists from other people

plural peoples : a body of persons that are united by a common culture, tradition, or sense of kinship, that typically have common language, institutions, and beliefs, and that often constitute a politically organized group

: lower animals usually of a specified kind or situation

: the body of enfranchised citizens of a state

peopleless

ˈpē-pə(l)-ləs

adjective

people

2 of 2

verb

peopled; peopling ˈpē-p(ə-)liŋ

transitive verb

: to supply or fill with people

: to dwell in : inhabit

Example Sentences

Noun People can be really cruel sometimes. People think the coach should be fired. She tends to annoy people. People say it's impossible, but I'm still going to try. a book for young people a people who migrated across the Bering Strait the native peoples of Mexico Verb a science-fiction novel about a mission to people Mars See More

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Hundreds of residential buildings are currently sealed off, with people unable to enter or leave as officials say Beijing is facing its most serious outbreak of the pandemic.

Kriti Gandhi, NBC News, 24 Nov. 2022 It was greeted by emotional songs and prayers from tribe's people.

Bobby Ross Jr., The Arizona Republic, 24 Nov. 2022 Anyone at risk for getting severely ill from RSV – young children and older adults– should consider wearing a mask when indoors with people who are not in their household.

oregonlive, 24 Nov. 2022 People cook and eat to suit their palates, and Americans of the 1950s grew up developing different palates from most people today.

Daniel Engber, The Atlantic, 24 Nov. 2022 The officers interact with incarcerated people in totally different ways.

Ambar Castillo, STAT, 23 Nov. 2022 Earlier this month, for example, a federal district court judge in Texas struck down part of a law that sought to keep guns away from people accused of or at risk of committing domestic violence.

Matt Ford, The New Republic, 23 Nov. 2022 Orfield Labs was bombarded with phone calls and emails from people demanding a shot at winning the money.

Caity Weaver, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2022 Still, this year’s tournament is expected to shatter television viewership records, with some 5 billion people tuning in from around the globe.

Time, 23 Nov. 2022

Verb

Given his years dancing alongside them as a New York City Ballet member, choreographer Justin Peck knows the men and women who people his art especially well.

Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2021 The Copenhagen Trilogy, by contrast, is fastidiously unjudgmental toward those who people it, including its author, though an autobiographical account is an ideal vehicle of complaint.

Deborah Eisenberg, The New York Review of Books, 9 Mar. 2021 Protests have mostly been peopled by the young, those on college campuses and those who can take a day off to vent without bearing much consequence.

Sarah Haselhorst, Cincinnati.com, 2 June 2020 In Maricopa County, 196 peopled are thought to have died from heat exposure last summer, up from 182 the year before.

Los Angeles Times, 5 May 2020 The upper part of the valley is well peopled, and many of the hills are cultivated high up.

Scientific American, 20 Apr. 2020 Inside, the small, low-ceilinged rooms are peopled with pilgrims.

Roxana Robinson, The New Yorker, 29 Jan. 2020 Most of the floors had at least a few offices with the lights on, at least some of them peopled with executives trying to figure out what to do now.

Greg Jefferson, ExpressNews.com, 20 Mar. 2020 Both writers invented a place and, in novel after novel, peopled it with the same characters.

Edmund White, Harper's magazine, 6 Jan. 2020 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'people.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.