popular

Less common meanings

5. 5
   admired studentnouncountable

   A well-liked person, especially a student who belongs to the school's most admired social group.

   In ninth grade she longed to be invited to sit with the populars, who seemed to decide what was cool.

   The populars set the dress code for the whole eighth grade.

   UsageUsually plural with the: the populars, said of a school's in-crowd.

6. 6
   cheapadjective

   Suited to the means of ordinary people; inexpensive.

   The opera house reserved its Saturday matinees for performances at popular prices.

   Railroads offered popular fares to fill their cheapest cars with day-trippers.

   UsageUsually with words for cost: popular prices, popular fares, a popular edition.

   Similaraffordable, inexpensive, cheap, budget, reasonable

   Oppositeexpensive, premium, exorbitant

7. 7
   mass newspapernouncountableplural

   A low-priced newspaper aimed at a mass readership and sold in large numbers.

   Historians of the British press often divide the papers of the 1950s into the populars, with their huge readerships, and the smaller quality titles.

   While the quality papers ran long analyses of the budget, the populars led with a celebrity divorce and a football transfer.

   UsageUsually the populars, set against the quality papers.

   Similartabloid

   Oppositebroadsheet

   Note

   Used chiefly in the plural, the populars are the mass-market papers set against the serious ones. Jeremy Tunstall's The Media in Britain (1983) draws exactly that contrast when it describes the populars turning into tabloid supplements to television. The same plural also names a school's in-crowd and a Roman political faction, so context decides which populars are meant. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Jeremy Tunstall wrote The Media in Britain, published in 1983. en.wiktionary.org
   • The book contrasts serious newspapers with populars and describes the latter becoming tabloid supplements to television. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   adjectiveobsolete

   Of low or common birth; not noble; plebeian.

   Popular and shallow-headed mindes, cannot perceive the grace or comelinesse, nor judge of a smooth and quaint discourse.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes

   Note

   Social rank, not approval, is what the word marked here. When John Florio's 1603 translation of Montaigne speaks of "popular and shallow-headed mindes," it means the minds of the common sort, with the same scorn that vulgar and plebeian carried. In period texts, read it as "low-born"; in modern writing, avoid it, because readers will hear "well liked."

9. 9
   adjectiveobsolete

   Courting or seeking the favor of the common people.

   Such popular humanity is treason.

   1712, Joseph Addison, Cato

   Note

   Here the word describes conduct rather than reception: being popular meant working to win the crowd. Joseph Addison's Cato (1713) shows the edge this could carry: "Such popular humanity is treason," kindness performed to court the people. In older writing, check whether a popular noble is admired or merely ingratiating, because the "well-liked" meaning names the result and this one names the effort.

10. 10
    noun

    One of the populares, politicians in the late Roman Republic who sought support through the people's assemblies, often in opposition to the Senate.