Folcan

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Old English dative form of the noun folc, used to mean to or for the people or a community
2. The dative case of the Old English word folc, meaning people, a nation, or a common crowd of persons
3. In Old English, the form of folc used after prepositions to indicate people or a company of folk

Etymology: Folcan is an Old English word meaning "to wave" or "to flutter," and its best-known descendant is "folk," not a word for people at all. Its root is "folc," which is the same source as the modern English "folk," and originally referred to a crowd, a group, or a moving mass of people. The verb "folcan" described that same surging, shifting motion: waving or fluttering as a crowd does. Shared Germanic ancestry gives it relatives in Dutch and German, and the verb itself belongs to the older layer of English vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic. The verb did not survive into Modern English. It was lost after the medieval period, while the noun "folk" kept its place and gradually narrowed from "crowd" to "a nation or community of people." The pairing is a reminder that the two meanings were once close enough to share a root in the same sense of movement.