folk: [OE] Folk comes from a prehistoric Germanic *folkam, which also produced German and Dutch volk and Swedish and Danish folk. It is not clear where this came from, although it has been linked with the Indo- European base *pel-, *plē- ‘fill’, which might also have produced Latin populus ‘people’. On the other hand Russian polk’, thought to have been borrowed from the Germanic form, means ‘division of an army’, and it is conceivable that this may preserve an earlier semantic stratum, represented also in Old Norse folk, which signified both ‘people’ and ‘army’.
folk (n.)
Old English folc "common people, laity; men; people, nation, tribe; multitude; troop, army," from Proto-Germanic *folkam (cognates: Old Saxon folc, Old Frisian folk, Middle Dutch volc, Dutch volk, Old High German folc, German Volk "people"). Perhaps originally "host of warriors:" Compare Old Norse folk "people," also "army, detachment;" and Lithuanian pulkas "crowd," Old Church Slavonic pluku "division of an army," both believed to have been borrowed from Proto-Germanic. Old English folcstede could mean both "dwelling-place" and "battlefield." According to Watkins, from PIE *ple-go-, suffixed form of root *pele- (1) "to fill," which would make it cognate with Greek plethos "people, multitude." Superseded in most senses by people. Generally a collective noun in Middle English, however plural folks is attested from 15c.
Old English folc was commonly used in forming compounds (59 are listed in the Clark Hall dictionary), such as folccwide "popular saying," folcgemot "town or district meeting;" folcwoh "deception of the public." Modern use of folk as an adjective is from c. 1850 (see folklore).
双语例句
1. The word "volk" translates literally as "folk"
volk这个单词直译过来为folk（人们）。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The folk-song world was another of his abiding interests.
民歌是他的另一个始终不渝的爱好。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Jack was a folk hero in the Greenwich Village bars.
在格林尼治村的酒吧里杰克是人们心目中的英雄。
来自柯林斯例句
4. A military band played Russian marches and folk tunes.
一支军乐队演奏了俄罗斯的进行曲与民乐。
来自柯林斯例句
5. I don't know what those folk think they are playing at.