PEOPLE  , a collective

term for persons in general, especially as forming the body of persons in a community or nation, the " folk " (the O.E. and Teut. word, cf . Ger . Volk) . The earlier forms of the word were peple, poe pie, puple, &c.; the present form is found as early as the 15th century, but was not established till the beginning of the 16th . Old French, from which it was adapted, had many of these forms as well as the mod . Fr. peuple . The Lat. populus is generally taken to be a reduplication from the root ple,—fill, seen in plenus, full; plebs, the commons; Gr. rrMOor, multitude .