public

Alternative forms

• publick, publicke, publique (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman publik, public, Middle French public, publique et al., and their source, Latin pūblicus (“pertaining to the people”). Compare people.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʌblɪk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pub‧lic

Adjective

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, 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.

Noun

public (usually uncountable, 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:

     “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?)

Further reading

• public in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• public in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /py.blik/

• audio

  (file)

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin publicus.

Etymology 2

Noun use of public (compare Latin publicum).

Further reading

• “public” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Adjective

public m pl

1. plural of publich

Alternative forms

• publik
• publiq
• publique

Adjective

public m (oblique and nominative feminine singular publique)

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

References

• publik on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Etymology

Borrowed from French public < Latin publicus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpu.blik/

Adjective

public m, n (feminine singular publică, masculine plural publici, feminine and neuter plural publice)

1. public

Noun

public

1. the public