Policemen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals employed by a police force to maintain law and order in a community
2. Officers tasked with enforcing the law, preventing crime, and providing public safety services
3. Members of law enforcement responsible for patrolling areas, responding to emergencies, and assisting the public

Etymology: "Policemen" is the plural of "policeman," a compound formed from "police" and "man." The "man" half is ancient and ordinary: it descends from Old English "mann," meaning a person of either sex or a human being in general, long before it narrowed to male adults. The "police" half has a longer and more winding route, starting in the Greek "polis," meaning city, and the "politeia," the condition or administration of a city-state. That Greek noun passed into Latin as "politia," and from there into Middle French as "police," which carried the sense of civil administration and public order. English borrowed "police" from French, where it came to mean the regulation of a community, and only later attached to the body of people charged with enforcing that order. The modern compound "policeman" then combined the borrowed word with the native "man," producing a term for an individual officer of that body.

Synonyms: officers, lawmen, constables, peacekeepers, guards

Antonyms: criminals, offenders, lawbreakers, delinquents