folk

n. people; people who share a common background or way of life (i.e. country folk); cultural or ethnic group

adj. of people; traditional

Folk is one of the Germanic roots that mean "(of) the people" or "our people" (as opposed to different clans, tribes, or nations). The English word folk has cognates in most of the other Germanic languages. Folk may be a Germanic root that is unique to the Germanic languages, and not derived directly from Indo-European; though some non-Germanic cognates such as Latin vulgus, "the common people", have been suggested.
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Noun
1. people in general; "they're just country folk"; "the common people determine the group character and preserve its customs from one generation to the next"
(synonym) common people
(hypernym) people
(hyponym) grass roots
(member-meronym) plebeian, pleb
2. a social division of (usually preliterate) people
(synonym) tribe
(hypernym) social group
(hyponym) phyle
(member-meronym) moiety
3. people descended from a common ancestor; "his family has lived in Massachusetts since the Mayflower"
(synonym) family, family line, kinfolk, kinsfolk, sept, phratry
(hypernym) lineage, line, line of descent, descent, bloodline, blood line, blood, pedigree, ancestry, origin, parentage, stemma, stock
(hyponym) people
4. the traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community
(synonym) folk music, ethnic music
(hypernym) popular music, popular music genre
(hyponym) folk song, folksong, folk ballad

adj. folk, of people; traditional

n. folk, people; people who share a common background or way of life (i.e. country folk); cultural or ethnic group