# police

Pronunciation: say "puh-LEES" /pəˈliːs/

## Noun

1. The official body that enforces the law and keeps public order, whether a national, regional or city force, or its officers considered together.
   - Simple: The people and organization whose job is to make sure laws are obeyed and to keep people safe.
   - _The police sealed off the street after the robbery._
   - _When the storm knocked out the traffic lights downtown, police directed cars through the busiest intersections until the power came back._
4. People who try to enforce norms or standards on others as though granted authority similar to that of the police.
   - Simple: People who act as if it is their job to make others follow certain rules, though no one gave them that power.
   - _Online, the grammar police pounce on every misplaced comma._
   - _He resented the self-appointed police of acceptable opinion in his department._

## Verb

2. To keep order and enforce the law within a community or group, or to watch over an activity and make sure its rules are followed.
   - Simple: To keep order in a place or group, or to check that people follow the rules for something.
   - _Local officers police the neighborhood to prevent disturbances._
   - _It takes thousands of troops to police such a vast territory._
3. To enforce conformity to particular norms or standards upon a person or group.
   - Simple: To make people follow certain rules or ways of behaving.
   - _Social media users relentlessly police one another's language._
   - _Critics accused the committee of trying to police public taste._
5. To clean up an area, especially as an assigned military duty. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To clean up an area by picking up things left lying around, often as a job for soldiers.
   - _After the firing drill, the range officer told them to police up every piece of spent brass._
   - _After the field exercise, the squad spent an hour policing the training area, picking up spent shell casings and empty ration packets._

## Noun

6. The administration and regulation of a community or society; its overall governance and good order. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The way a community or society is run and kept in order.

## Other meanings

- (noun) The organized cleanup of a military facility, performed as a formal assigned duty.

## Origin

The word goes back to Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía), which gave Latin polītīa ("state, government"). Middle French police came from the Latin, and English took it from there. Policy and polity are doublets.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/police (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).