Word of the Day


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The Word of the Day for October 10, 2008 is:


posse • \PAH-see\  • noun
*1 : a large group often with a common interest 2 : a body of persons summoned by a sheriff to assist in preserving the public peace usually in an emergency 3 : a group of people temporarily organized to make a search (as for a lost child) 4 : one’s attendants or associates

Example Sentence:


"On the Saturday morning we used to watch anxiously for the usual signs of activity and when we saw a large barrel of beer being escorted up the streets by a posse of small boys we knew that all was well." (Edmund Barber Country Life October 12 1951)

Did you know?


"Posse" started out as a technical term in law part of the term "posse comitatus" which in Medieval Latin meant "power or authority of the county." As such it referred to a group of citizens summoned by a sheriff to preserve the public peace as allowed for by law. "Preserving the public peace" so often meant hunting down a supposed criminal that "posse" eventually came to mean any group organized to make a search or embark on a mission. In even broader use it can refer to any group period. Sometimes nowadays that group is a gang or a rock band but it can as easily be any group -- of politicians models architects tourists children or what have you -- acting in concert.*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.