WORD OF THE DAY: POSSE
noun | PAH-see
What It Means
A posse is a group of friends, or a group of people who are gathered together for a particular purpose. Posse also refers to a group of people who were gathered together by a sheriff in the past to help search for a criminal.
// He and his posse met after school to catch the newly released sequel to their favourite movie.
// A posse of photographers waited outside the restaurant when they heard that the actress was spotted inside.
Examples of POSSE
“‘Kill Bill’ meets James Bond in the video, in which Swift fights against and with a posse of stars such as Selena Gomez, Cindy Crawford and Zendaya. Don’t expect them to pop up in the movie but, on tour, Swift performed the No. 1 hit with a posse of fierce, hip-swiveling dancers who stepped into the stars’ kicks.” — Chris Hewitt, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 10 Oct. 2023
Did You Know?
Posse started out in English as part of a term from common law, posse comitatus, which in Medieval Latin translates as “power or authority of the county.” Posse comitatus referred to a group of citizens summoned by a reeve (a medieval official) or 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 refer to any group organised to make a search or embark on a mission, and today one may read about posses organised for search and rescue efforts. 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 together for some shared purpose.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
