Folk

How to spell folk

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce folk

What does folk mean?

1. nounPeople in general, or a particular group of people considered informally.
2. adjectiveRelating to the traditional culture, music, or customs passed down among ordinary people.

Folk in a sentence

• noun

  The older folk in the village still remember the flood.

• adjective

  She learned every folk song her grandmother used to sing.

• noun

  Country folk tend to rise early and work the land.

• adjective

  The museum holds a fine collection of folk art from the region.

Where does folk come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from Old English folc, which meant the common people, a nation, or a crowd, and it sits among a large family of Germanic relatives, including the Old Norse folk and the modern German Volk, all carrying the sense of a body of people. Scholars trace the root to a Proto-Germanic form that may once have referred to a host or band of warriors, with the meaning broadening over time to ordinary people in general. The word was already well established in English before the Norman Conquest, making it one of the older everyday nouns in the language. From the nineteenth century it picked up a fresh life as a modifier in compounds like folklore, folk song, and folk dance, naming the traditions handed down among ordinary people. The spelling trap is the silent l, kept from the original folc even though the modern pronunciation has dropped it, so the word sounds like it should end in oak.

How the word is built

• folk (from Old English folc: common people, a nation or crowd); the silent l survives from the original spelling