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popular, a. (n.)|ˈpɒpjʊlə(r)|
Forms: 5–7 populer, 6 Sc. -air, 7 -are, 6– popular.
[ad. L. populār-is adj. belonging to the people, f. popul-us people. So OF. populeir, -ere, F. populaire.]
A. adj.
1. Law. Affecting, concerning, or open to all or any of the people; public; esp. in action popular.
1490Act 4 Hen. VII, c. 20 Accions populers in divers cases have ben ordeigned by many gode actes and statutes. 1579Expos. Termes Law, Accion populer, is an accion which is geeuen vppon the breach of some Penal statute, which..euery man that wyll may sue for him selfe, and the Queene, by information, or otherwise,..& because that this action is not geeuen to one man specyally but generally to the Queenes people that wyll sue, it is called an actyon populer. 1581Lambarde Eiren. ii. ii. (1588) 132, I have knowen it doubted, whether the Suertie of the good abearing (commanded upon complaint) may be released by any speciall person or no: because it seemeth more popular, then the Suertie of the Peace. 1766Blackstone Comm. II. xxix. 437. 1872 Wharton's Law Lex. (ed. 5), Popular action, brought by one of the public to recover some penalty given by statute to any one who chooses to sue for it.
2. a. Of, pertaining to, or consisting of the common people, or the people as a whole as distinguished from any particular class; constituted or carried on by the people.
1548W. Thomas in Strype Eccl. Mem. II. App. S. 66 What popular estate can be read, that hath thirty years together eschewed sects, sedition and commotions? 1579–80North Plutarch (1676) 230 Timoleon..did by this means stablish a free State and Popular Government. 1671Milton Samson 16 Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some ease. 1761Hume Hist. Eng. III. liv. 170 Popular tumults were not disagreeable to them. 1833Alison Hist. Europe (1847) II. vii. §1. 269 The Legislative Assembly affords the first example,..in modern Europe, of the effects of a completely popular election. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. II. lxix. 541 From 1824 till 1840, nominations irregularly made by State legislatures and popular meetings.
†b. Of lowly birth; belonging to the commonalty or populace; plebeian. Obs.
c1555Harpsfield Divorce Hen. VIII (Camden) 42 More..than when it is granted to any popular or common person. 1600E. Blount tr. Conestaggio 118 Him they sent being a popular man. 1640T. Pierse in Horti Carol., Rosa altera, A drop of Royall blood is dearer farre Than a whole Ocean of the popular. 1691Norris Pract. Disc. 87 This is..the Measure that all Popular Spirits do go by, and the Wisest can hardly refrain it.
†c. Having characteristics attributed to the common people; low, vulgar, plebeian. Obs.
1599B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. i. i, Such as flourish in the spring of the fashion, and are least popular. 1603Florio Montaigne (1632) 624 It is a custome of popular or base men to call for minstrels or singers at feasts. a1635Naunton Fragm. Reg. (Arb.) 22 Had the House been freed of half a dozen of popular and discontented persons.
†3. Full of people; populous; crowded. Obs.
1588Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China 13 These two prouinces, which are two of the mightiest, and most popularst of people. 1641J. Jackson True Evang. T. iii. 184 How doth the popular City sit solitary? a1699J. Kirkton Ch. Hist. (1817) 215 The most popular part of Scotland. 1727Philip Quarll 47 Oppression and Usury, and all the Evils that attend this popular World.
4. Intended for or suited to ordinary people.
a. Adapted to the understanding or taste of ordinary people, ‘understanded of the people’. spec. in popular (news)paper, popular press, popular romance, etc., designating literature and ephemeral publications intended for a general readership.
1573G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 11 In philosophical disputations to give popular and plausible theams. 1759Franklin Ess. Wks. 1840 III. 188 All he said was in popular language. 1817Coleridge Biog. Lit. I. xii. 253 To an Esquimaux or New Zealander our most popular philosophy would be wholly unintelligible. 1835J. S. Mill in London Rev. II. 273 Not only has it no leaders in Parliament, but it has none in the popular press. 1841T. Wright (title) Popular treatises on science. Ibid. p. vii, They [sc. the treatises] are important documents of the history of popular science. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 109 Every question..was debated, sometimes in a popular style which boys and women could comprehend. 1865J. S. Mill Auguste Comte 48 The truths which popular philosophy calls by the misleading name of Contingent. 1872(Aug.) Longmans' List Works 8 Miscellaneous Works and Popular Metaphysics. Ibid. 12 Natural History and Popular Science. 1876W. James Let. 21 Sept. (1920) I. 190 The free-thinking tendency which the ‘Popular Science Monthly’..represents. 1890― Princ. Psychol. I. iii. 81 The popular-science notions of cells and fibres are almost wholly wide of the truth. 1901Chesterton Defendant 16 The coarse and thin texture of mere current popular romance. 1901G. B. Shaw Three Plays for Puritans p. vii, They read a good deal, and are at home in the fool's paradise of popular romance. 1907Boston Med. & Surg. Jrnl. 26 Dec. 847/2 A second means of dissemination of knowledge of the psychotherapeutic movement is through the medium of the popular press. 1937W. S. Churchill Let. 20 Sept. in Second World War (1948) I. i. xiv. 193, I was very glad to see that Neville [Chamberlain] has been backing you up, and not, as represented by the Popular Press, holding you back by the coat-tails. 1937Discovery Sept. 292/2 A contribution to popular science. 1952H. Herd March of Journalism xvii. 326 Many popular newspapers..aim to interest everyman without indulging in sensationalism... Most of the ‘populars’ come within this classification. 1957R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy vi. 144 The leader-writers of the popular Press make great play with horizons, new dawns, broad highways, forward movements..and forward-lookers. Ibid. 149 The popular papers, always identifying themselves with ‘the people’, conduct polls on this matter and questionnaires on that matter among their readers, and so elevate the counting of heads into a substitute for judgment. 1960K. Amis New Maps of Hell (1961) ii. 53 A popular-science article on atomic physics. 1964Hall & Whannel Popular Arts vii. 165 Popular romance..is full of variants on the Romeo-and-Juliet or Cinderella themes. 1972S. Hynes Edwardian Occasions 178 Hewlett..had begun by working entirely within the established conventions of the popular romance. 1976Conservation News Sept./Oct. 9/1 The wartime slogan ‘Digging for Victory’ has reappeared in the popular press. 1977New Yorker 19 Sept. 133/1 Why is it that there is not more good popular-science writing?
b. Adapted to the means of ordinary people; low, moderate (in price). Also attrib.
1859Illustr. Lond. News 2 July 11/2 The Monday Popular Concert..was the last of the series for this season. 1885C. E. Pascoe London of To-day iv. 67 The multitude which invades the ‘Zoo’ on Monday, which is the ‘popular-price’ day, when a sixpence opens the gate to the neediest. 1890Lady's Pictorial 15 Mar. 347/3 The book is to be produced at the popular price of one shilling. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 751/2 After the foundation of the Popular Concerts in 1859..he [Joachim] played there regularly in the latter part of the season. a1907Mod. All seats at popular prices. A popular concert will be given. 1911G. B. Shaw Doctor's Dilemma p. xxxvii, Yet people expect to find vaccines..retailed at ‘popular prices’ in private enterprise shops just as they expect to find ounces of tobacco and papers of pins. 1916Variety 27 Oct. 12/1 Sid Grauman's ‘Night at the World's Fair’ is drawing well at the Majestic, attendance doubtless being encouraged by popular prices. 1971L. Lamb Worse than Death ii. 23 ‘Teas at popular prices?’ ‘Oh, the teas were cheap enough.’
c. popular capitalism, a style of capitalism characterized by the extension to the populace at large of greater opportunity and encouragement to own shares, property, small businesses, etc.; the theory or practice of this.
1979Summary World Broadcasts: Eastern Europe (B.B.C.) 31 Jan. b1 Hoxha analyses..theories used to justify the..capitalist revisionist order, such as..‘popular capitalism’. 1983Financial Times 25 Jan. 2/2 Transferring shares to employees as part of a genuine popular capitalism. 1987Sunday Tel. 28 June 6/6 Free market and popular capitalism is proving to be the efficient engine of wealth creation, growth and enterprise many of us always knew it was.
†5.
a. Studious of, or designed to gain, the favour of the common people.
b. Attached or devoted to the cause of the people (as opposed to the nobility, etc.). Obs.
1579–80North Plutarch (1595) 874 Diuers were of opinion, that he [Caius Gracchus] was more popular, and desirous of the common peoples good will and fauour, then his brother had bene before him. 1622Bacon Hen. VII, 165 The lord Avdley..a Noble-man of an ancient Family, but vnquiet and popular,..came in to them [rebels]. 1701Swift Contests Nobles & Com. Athens & Rome iii, The practices of popular and ambitious men. 1771Goldsm. Hist. Eng. I. 204 The first acts of an usurper are always popular.
6. a. Finding favour with or approved by the people; like, beloved, or admired by the people, or by people generally; favourite, acceptable, pleasing.
1608Chapman Byron's Conspir. ii. i. Plays 1873 II. 205 He is a foole that keepes them with more care, Then they keepe him, safe, rich, and populare. 1623Cockeram, Popular, in great fauour with the common people. 1710Tatler No. 190 ⁋4 This..will make me more popular among my Dependants. 1812Religionism 24 The popular Preachers,—men of high renown. 1883Manch. Guard. 22 Oct. 5/4 When the bashful bard had committed his verses to print they soon became popular.
b. Designating (aspects of) art and culture whose forms appeal to or are favoured by people generally; esp. in popular art, popular music, popular song, etc.
Also influenced by sense 4.
1841S. Bamford Passages in Life of Radical (ed. 2) I. xxxiii. 200 A hundred or two of our handsomest girls..danced to the music, or sung snatches of popular songs. 1855W. Chappell (title) Popular music of the olden time. 1866C. Engel Introd. Study National Mus. v. 168 The peculiar character of the popular music of a nation appears to be in great measure determined by the climate of the country, by the occupation and habits of the people, and even by the food upon which they principally subsist. 1898G. B. Shaw Plays Pleasant & Unpleasant I. p. v, I had no taste for what is called popular art, no respect for popular morality, [etc.]. 1911H. G. Hewlett Chorley's National Mus. of World (ed. 3) 201 The large share,..which popular, if not Church, music has taken and takes in mourning for the dead in Ireland, is a characteristic not to be overlooked. 1927R. H. Wilenski Mod. Movement in Art 28 The nineteenth century produced original and popular art of the romantic and descriptive kinds. 1934A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 267 Where popular art is vulgar, there the life of the people is also essentially vulgar in its emotional quality. 1935Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Nov. 38/1 Our jazzmen have had no attention except for the exploitation of a few Tin-Pan Alley terms concerning the popular song industry. 1941Musical Q. XXVII. 48 The prevalent false dichotomy of ‘classical’ and ‘popular’ based on a belief in the inferiority of the latter as music. 1947Sat. Rev. Lit. (U.S.) 10 May 9/2 By popular art we mean creative work that measures success by the size of its audience and the profit it brings to its makers. 1956B. Nettl Mus. in Primitive Culture ix. 121 American Negro material..has had its effect on folk music, on popular music in the form of jazz, and on a good deal of cultivated music. 1957R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy i. v. 129 The finest period in English urban popular song seems to have been between 1880 and 1910, when each great music-hall star had errand boys and earls singing his or her characteristic songs. 1959News Chron. 10 July 3/2 ‘Search your attics, turn out your cupboards,’ exhorted the B.B.C., ‘and join in a television treasure hunt.’.. This is a first-class idea for popular culture. 1962A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio iii. 65 This method is employed a great deal in the recording of popular music—but very rarely indeed for serious music. 1964Hall & Whannel Popular Arts iii. 66 In the previous chapter we tried to show the continuity between folk art and popular art. Then, by following the line of continuity into the early cinema and Chaplin, we indicated the way in which this popular art emerged within the new media. 1966D. Jenkins Educated Society ii. 58 Popular culture, which..is to be sharply distinguished from..commercialized ‘pop culture’..is the style of life of the majority of the members of a community. 1978J. Pascall Illustr. Hist. Rock Music 12 Popular music has never existed to be analysed. It has existed purely to give pleasure. Rock & roll, more than any other popular music, defies intellectual examination. 1979Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts July 511/2 It is a catalogue of one of the largest collections of Indian popular painting outside India itself.
7. a. Prevalent or current among, or accepted by, the people generally; common, general; † (of sickness) epidemic (obs.).
1603Florio Montaigne (1632) 432, I remember a popular sickenesse, which some yeares since, greatly troubled the townes about mee. 1616B. Jonson Devil is an Ass i. iii, Sir, that's a popular error, deceiues many. 1651Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year ii. xxvi. 329 Does not God plant remedies there where the diseases are most popular? 1727–41Chambers Cycl., Popular errors, are such as people imbibe from one another, by custom, education, and tradition. 1803Med. Jrnl. IX. 422 In all popular diseases prostration of strength forbids its repetition. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 241 A popular aphorism of modern times.
b. popular etymology [tr. G. Volksetymologie]= folk etymology (folk 6).
1880A. H. Sayce Introd. Sci. of Lang. II. ix. 246 Such myths are created by those popular etymologies—that Volksetymologie as the Germans call it—which play so large a part in local names. 1901H. Oertel Lect. Study of Lang. iii. 187 In all cases of so-called popular etymology it is necessary that the meaning of one of the two words should be unknown, that of the other familiar. 1926Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 227/1 It is true..that -yard [in halyard] is no better than a popular-etymology corruption. 1933L. Bloomfield Language xxiii. 423 So⁓called popular etymologies are largely adaptive and contaminative. An irregular or semantically obscure form is replaced by a new form of more normal structure and some semantic content—though the latter is often far-fetched. 1934S. Robertson Devel. Mod. Eng. (1936) xi. 456 Words altered by popular etymology have often..displaced the original forms and become thoroughly accepted in standard speech. 1958A. S. C. Ross Etym. i. 68 There is..another subject to which the General Public applies the name etymology, a subject which philologists often call Popular Etymology. This subject is one quite without value but..it is one of the great breeders of popular fallacies.
8. U.S. dial. or slang.
a. Conceited.
b. Good.
1848Lowell Biglow P. Poems 1890 II. 43 He see a cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking. 1884Sat. Rev. 8 Nov. 590/2 New York restaurant... ‘I don't call this very popular pie’. They have come..to take popular quite gravely and sincerely as a synonym for good.
9. Parasynth. comb., as popular-minded, popular-priced, popular-shaped.
1837J. S. Mill in Westm. Rev. XXXVII. 8 This want is most felt..by the most popular-minded public men. 1902Daily Chron. 23 Dec. 2/7 The directors had resolved to produce popular-priced cycles. 1902Westm. Gaz. 20 Mar. 3/2 The popular-shaped flounce. 1916Variety 27 Oct. 12/1 ‘The Little Girl that God Forgot’, the popular priced attraction at the Crescent opened Sunday. 1958Newnes Compl. Amat. Photogr. xvi. 158 The more popular-priced cameras fitted with lenses of f/3·5 or f/4·5, will be fast enough for instantaneous exposures in artificial light.
B. absol. or as n. (from sense 2).
†a. In collective sense (with the or other demonstr. adj.; cf. the public): The commonalty, the populace. Obs.
1552Lyndesay Monarche 4966 Ane holy exemplair Tyll ws, thy pure lawid commoun populair. a1577Sir T. Smith Commw. Eng. (1633) 5 The rule or the usurping of the popular, or rascall or viler sort. a1578[see populary]. 1633J. Done Hist. Septuagint 19 All the rest of the Populer..he instituted as Colonies.
†b. n. pl. populars, the common people, the commons. Sometimes rendering L. populārēs, the plebeians (as opp. to the patricians). Obs.
1579Fenton Guicciard. (1618) 28 He confirmed with gifts,..the courage and intention of Iohn Lewis de Fiesguo..and many other gentlemen and populars. 1600W. Watson Decacordon (1602) 319 Together with all the populars of euery Prince in Christendome. 1610Healey Vives' Comm. St. Aug. Citie of God (1620) 77 The newes of his death stirred vp both Patricians and Populars to ioy and mirth.
c. Short for popular concert: cf. pop n.4
1865Punch 4 Mar. 92/1 Pity poor Lucy! Obliged to go to the Monday Popular with Cousin Bess (from the country). 1885Ruskin Pleas. Eng. 139. I suppose her presence at a Morning Popular is as little anticipated as desired. 1885Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 18 May 3/3 Music Hall Populars. 1894[see Brahmsian a. and n.].
d. Short for popular newspaper: see sense 4 a above.
1952[see sense 4 a above]. 1961Times 11 Feb. 5/5 (Advt.), Choosing one's Sunday newspaper seems to have become a shade less straightforward in 1961. For forty years the alternative has had such a bonny simplicity about it: on the one hand the ‘posh Sundays’, on the other the populars. 1964‘W. Haggard’ Antagonists xviii. 169 The Press was besieging Nikola Mitrovic... He was hinting at women and money... The populars would run it hard. 1968Economist 7 Sept. 67/2 If the decline of the populars continues, Fleet Street stands to lose a third of its present newspapers. 1976T. Heald Let Sleeping Dogs Die vi. 110 Bognor..picked up the paper. It was one of the populars.
Hence † popular v. trans., to people, populate; ˈpopularish a.
1588Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China 181 There was but a quarter of a league distant one towne from an other, and..in all the Prouinces of the Kingdome, it is *populared in the same order. Ibid. 374 Yet are they populared with much people.
1824J. Wilson in Blackw. Mag. XV. 721 Butter-brodt, as the Germans call it in their superb and now *popularish dialect. |