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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Anglo-Norman publik, public, Middle French public, publique et al., and their source, Latin pūblicus (“pertaining to the people”). Compare people.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
public (comparative more public, superlative most public)
- Able to be seen or known by everyone; open to general view, happening without concealment. [from 14th c.]
- 2011, Sandra Laville, The Guardian, 18 Apr 2011:
- Earlier this month Godwin had to make a public apology to the family of Daniel Morgan after the collapse of a £30m inquiry into his murder in 1987.
- 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:
- Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […]. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.
- 2011, Sandra Laville, The Guardian, 18 Apr 2011:
- Pertaining to the people as a whole (as opposed to a private group); concerning the whole country, community etc. [from 15th c.]
- 2010, Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 16 Sep 2010:
- A mere 3% of the more than 1,000 people interviewed said they actually knew what the conference was about. It seems safe to say public awareness of the Convention on Biological Awareness in Nagoya - and its goal of safeguarding wildlife - is close to non-existent.
- 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly[1], volume 188, number 23, page 19:
- In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
- 2010, Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 16 Sep 2010:
- Officially representing the community; carried out or funded by the state on behalf of the community. [from 15th c.]
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.
- 2004, The Guardian, Leader, 18 Jun 2004:
- But culture's total budget is a tiny proportion of all public spending; it is one of the government's most visible success stories.
- Open to all members of a community; especially, provided by national or local authorities and supported by money from taxes. [from 15th c.]
- 2011, David Smith, The Guardian, 10 May 2011:
- Some are left for dead on rubbish tips, in refuge bags or at public toilets.
- 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:
- Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.
- 2011, David Smith, The Guardian, 10 May 2011:
- (of a company) Traded publicly via a stock market.
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from public (adjective)
- go public
- initial public offering
- in public
- public address system
- publically
- publican
- public assistance
- public domain
- public enemy
- public enemy number one
- public eye
- public figure
- public good
- public health
- Public Health System
- public holiday
- public house
- public intellectual
- public interest
- public intoxication
- public key
- public law
- public leaning post
- public library
- Public Limited Liability Company
- publicly held
- publicness
- public office
- public policy
- public-private partnership
- public property
- public school
- public servant
- public service
- public speaking
- public transportation
- public works
Related terms[edit]
Terms etymologically related to public
Translations[edit]
able to be seen by or known to everybody
pertaining to people as a whole
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provided (by the government) for the community
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open to all members of a community
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publicly traded
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
Noun[edit]
public (usually uncountable, plural publics)
- The people in general, regardless of membership of any particular group.
- Members of the public may not proceed beyond this point.
- 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Tremarn Case[2]:
- “Two or three months more went by ; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […] ”
- 2007 May 4, Martin Jacques, The Guardian
- Bush and Blair stand condemned by their own publics and face imminent political extinction.
- (archaic) A public house; an inn.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Walter Scott to this entry?)
Usage notes[edit]
- Although generally considered uncountable, this noun does also have countable usage, as in the quotation above.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
people in general
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Further reading[edit]
- public in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- public in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
French[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Adjective[edit]
public (feminine singular publique, masculine plural publics, feminine plural publiques)
Etymology 2[edit]
Noun use of public (compare Latin publicum).
Noun[edit]
public m (plural publics)
Further reading[edit]
- “public” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Ladin[edit]
Adjective[edit]
public m pl
Old French[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Adjective[edit]
public m (oblique and nominative feminine singular publique)
- public (not private; available to the general populace)
Derived terms[edit]
References[edit]
- publik on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
Romanian[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from French public < Latin publicus.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
public m, n (feminine singular publică, masculine plural publici, feminine and neuter plural publice)
Noun[edit]
public
- the public
Categories:
- English terms derived from Anglo-Norman
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with archaic senses
- Requests for quotation/Sir Walter Scott
- English 1-syllable words
- English basic words
- en:Collectives
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French terms derived from Latin
- French lemmas
- French adjectives
- French nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French countable nouns
- Ladin non-lemma forms
- Ladin adjective forms
- Old French lemmas
- Old French adjectives
- Romanian terms derived from French
- Romanian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Romanian lemmas
- Romanian adjectives
- Romanian nouns
