public

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See also: públic

English[edit]

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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”), alteration (probably after pubes (“adult men”)) of populicus, from populus (“people”). Compare people.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈpʌblɪk/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Hyphenation: pub‧lic

Adjective[edit]

public (comparative more public, superlative most public)

  1. 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.
  2. Pertaining to all the people as a whole (as opposed 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. (of a company) Traded publicly via a stock market.

Antonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Terms derived from public (adjective)

Related terms[edit]

Terms etymologically related to public

Translations[edit]

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 (plural publics)

  1. 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.
  2. (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]

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

Statistics[edit]

Most common English words before 1923 in Project Gutenberg: thus · order · near · #286: public · others · anything · matter

Further reading[edit]

French[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from Latin publicus.

Adjective[edit]

public (feminine singular publique, masculine plural publics, feminine plural publiques)

  1. public

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun use of public (compare Latin publicum).

Noun[edit]

public m (plural publics)

  1. public (people in general)
  2. audience
    Il devait plaire à son public.
    He had to please his audience

Further reading[edit]

Ladin[edit]

Adjective[edit]

public m pl

  1. plural of publich

Old French[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Adjective[edit]

public m (oblique and nominative feminine singular publique)

  1. public (not private; available to the general populace)

Derived terms[edit]

References[edit]

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)

  1. public

Noun[edit]

public

  1. the public
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