plebs

English

Etymology

From Latin plēbs (“the plebeian class”), variant of earlier plēbēs. Later also understood as the plural of pleb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plɛbz/
• Rhymes: -ɛbz

Noun

plebs

1. plural of pleb

Noun

plebs pl (plural only)

1. (historical) The plebeian class of Ancient Rome.

   Synonym: plebeiate

   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], line 92:

     Why I am going with my pidgeons to the tribunall Plebs.

2. The common people, especially (derogatory) the mob.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:commonalty

   • a. 1657, George Daniel, "The Author" in Poems, Vol. II, p. 131:

     For 'tis an Easier Thing
     To make Trees Leape, and Stones selfe-burthens bring
     (As once Amphion to the walls of Thæbes,)
     Then Stop the giddie Clamouring of Plebs...

   • 1993, Max Cavalera, "Refuse/Resist", Sepultura, Chaos A.D.

     Chaos A.D. / Tanks On The Streets / Confronting Police / Bleeding The Plebs

   • 2000, James Fentress, chapter 1, in Rebels & Mafiosi: Death in a Sicilian Landscape:

     The history of Palermo was punctuated by such uprisings; when they happened, the great barons simply fled to the safety of their country villas, leaving the urban plebs free to sack their palaces in the city.

   • 2009, Erica Benner, chapter 8, in Machiavelli's Ethics:

     The lesser plebs are not unscrupulous troublemakers.

Usage notes

Although the Latin plebs was usually declined as a singular group noun, English plebs is usually treated as grammatically plural in all its senses.

Derived terms

• plebiscite
• tribune of the plebs

Related terms

• plebeian, plebe, pleb

Translations

The common people

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 庶民 (zh) (shùmín)

• Czech: plebs (cs) m
• Esperanto: popolamaso
• French: plèbe (fr) f
• Galician: plebe (gl) f
• German: Plebs (de) f
• Icelandic: plebbi m
• Italian: plebe (it)
• Japanese: 庶民 (ja) (しょみん, shomin)
• Korean: 서민 (ko) (seomin)
• Latin: plebs (la) m
• Persian: عوام (fa) ('avâm)
• Polish: plebs (pl) m
• Portuguese: plebe (pt)
• Romanian: plebe (ro)
• Russian: плебс (ru) m (plebs), чернь (ru) f (černʹ), плебе́и (ru) m pl (plebéi)
• Spanish: plebe (es) f

References

• “plebs, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2006.

Czech

Noun

plebs m inan

1. plebs, commoners

Declension

Declension of plebs (hard masculine inanimate)

	singular	plural
nominative	plebs	plebsy
genitive	plebsu	plebsů
dative	plebsu	plebsům
accusative	plebs	plebsy
vocative	plebse	plebsy
locative	plebsu	plebsech
instrumental	plebsem	plebsy

Related terms

• plebej
• plebejec

 

Further reading

• “plebs”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “plebs”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin plēbs.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plɛps/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: plebs

Noun

plebs n (uncountable)

1. (derogatory) plebs, rabble, riffraff

   Synonyms: gepeupel, gespuis, grauw, tuig van de richel

2. (historical) plebs, commoners (non-aristocratic class in ancient Rome, esp. during the Roman Republic)

Related terms

• plebejer
• plebejisch
• plebisciet

Latin

Alternative forms

• plēbēs, plēbis (archaic)

Etymology

From Old Latin plēbēs, from Proto-Italic *plēðwēs (whence Oscan 𐌐𐌋𐌝𐌚𐌓𐌉𐌊𐌔 (plífriks, “plebeian”, nom. sg.) via *plēðros), from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁dʰwḗh₁s ~ *pl̥h₁dʰuh₁és (whence Ancient Greek πληθῡ́ς (plēthū́s, “crowd”)) from *pleh₁- (“fill”), whence pleō. See also populus.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /pleːbs/, [pɫ̪eːps̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /plebs/, [plɛbs]

Noun

plēbs f (genitive plēbis); third declension

1. (uncountable) plebeians, plebs, common people
   • 4th-5th century AD [2nd century BC], Servius, quoting Cassius Hemina, Annals, quoted in In Vergilii Aeneidos Libros:

     'circum fremunt': quidam hoc loco 'fremunt' id est imperia recusant intellegunt, ut apud Cassium in annalium secundo “ne quis regnum occuparet, si plebs nostra fremere imperia coepisset” , id est recusare.

     "circum fremunt': Some in this place understand that they 'grumble' that is, protest commands, as Cassius in the second book of Annals: "lest anyone seize power, if the plebs started to 'grumble' our commands", that is, to protest.

2. (countable and uncountable) populace, population, stock
   • 4 CE – c. 70 CE, Columella, De Re Rustica 9.11:

     Quod si nullam progeniem tulerint favi, duas vel tres alv(e)orum plebes in unam contribuere licebit, sed prius respersas dulci liquore

     • 1954 translation by E. S. Forster, Edward H. Heffner

       But if the combs have produced no offspring, it will be open to you to bring together the population of two or three hives into one, but only after they have been sprinkled with sweet liquid

3. (Late Latin, countable and uncountable, Christianity) laity, congregation, parish
   • 396 CE, Augustine of Hippo, Letters 33.4:

     aut si per epistolas agi placet, ipsae plebibus recitentur, ut aliquando non plebes, sed plebs una dicatur.

     or if you prefer the discussion to be carried out by letters, let them be read to the congregations, so that at length they may be called not "congregations", but one congregation.

Usage notes

Alongside plēbs, the older nominative singular form plēbēs f sg continued to be used with singular verb and adjective agreement in authors such as Cicero and Livy. In Livy, plēbēs is sometimes used instead as the subject of a plural verb; in such cases, it is ambiguous whether the noun itself is plural, or singular with the verb showing notional agreement (as sometimes seen with collective nouns such as populus). The first unambiguously plural form to be attested is accusative plēbēs, found in Columella and later in Apuleius. Plural genitive, dative, and ablative forms are not attested in Classical Latin, but can be found from Late Latin onwards.

Other old forms with continued use include a fifth-declension genitive singular plēbē̆ī or plēbī (versus third-declension plēbis) and a fifth-declension dative singular plēbē̆ī (versus plēbī). By the end of the first century BC, the use of fifth declension forms seems to have been an archaism.

The earliest attested use of the nominative singular form plēbs is found in a fragment attributed by Servius to the historian Cassius Hemina, who wrote in the second century BC; it is not found on inscriptions until Augustus.

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem or imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	plēbs plēbēs	plēbēs
Genitive	plēbis	plēbium plēbum
Dative	plēbī	plēbibus
Accusative	plēbem	plēbēs plēbīs
Ablative	plēbe	plēbibus
Vocative	plēbs plēbēs	plēbēs

The non-i-stem variant is found in Medieval Latin.

Derived terms

• plēbēcula/ plēbicula
• plēbēius
• plēbicola
• plēbiscītum
• plēbitās
• concilium plēbis
• tribūnus plēbis

Descendants

• Emilian: pev
• Friulian: plef, plêv
• Italian: pieve
• Ladin: plief, plieu, pieue, plié
• Ligurian: chieve
• Old Occitan: pleu
• Piedmontese: piev
• Romansch: plaif, plaiv
• Venetan: piove

From *plēbānus:

• Friulian: plevan
• Italian: piovano
• Ladin: pluvan, ploan
• Piedmontese: piovan
• Romansch: plevon, plavan
• Venetan: plavan (Muggia)

Early borrowings:

• → Proto-Brythonic: *pluɨβ (from the plural)
  • Breton: ploue
  • Cornish: pluw
  • Middle Welsh: plwyf
    • Welsh: plwyf

Modern borrowings:

• → Catalan: plebs
• → English: plebs, pleb
• → French: plèbe
  • → Romanian: plebe
• → Greek: πληβείος (pliveíos), πληβεία f (pliveía)
• → Icelandic: plebbi
• → Italian: plebe
• → Polish: plebs
• → Portuguese: plebe
• → Spanish: plebe

Further reading

• “plebs”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “plebs”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• plebs in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• plebs in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • one of the people: homo plebeius, de plebe
    
  • to get oneself admitted as a plebeian: traduci ad plebem (Att. 1. 18. 4)
    
  • to transfer oneself from the patrician to the plebeian order: transitio ad plebem (Brut. 16. 62)
    
  • to transfer oneself from the patrician to the plebeian order: traductio ad plebem
    
  • to stir up the lower classes: plebem concitare, sollicitare
    
  • to hold the people in one's power, in check: plebem continere
    
  • (ambiguous) the dregs of the people: faex populi, plebis, civitatis
    
  • (ambiguous) a demagogue, agitator: plebis dux, vulgi turbator, civis turbulentus, civis rerum novarum cupidus
    
  • (ambiguous) the plebeian tribunes, whose persons are inviolable: tribuni plebis sacrosancti (Liv. 3. 19. 10)
    
  • (ambiguous) to appeal to the plebeian tribunes against a praetor's decision: appellare tribunos plebis (in aliqua re a praetore) (Liv. 2. 55)
    
• “plebs”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “plēbs”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 494
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “plēbs”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 9: Placabilis–Pyxis, page 55

Polish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin plēbs.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈplɛps/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛps
• Syllabification: plebs

Noun

plebs m inan

1. (collective, derogatory) plebs (common people, hoi polloi, the mob)
2. (collective, historical, Ancient Rome) plebs (plebeian class of Ancient Rome)

Declension

Declension of plebs

	singular
nominative	plebs
genitive	plebsu
dative	plebsowi
accusative	plebs
instrumental	plebsem
locative	plebsie
vocative	plebsie

Further reading

• plebs in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• plebs in Polish dictionaries at PWN