PUBLIC • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Public

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈəblɪk/ Listen

adjective

Public adj.

1.

Of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury. "To the public good Private respects must yield." "He (Alexander Hamilton) touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

2.

Open to the knowledge or view of all; general; common; notorious; as, public report; public scandal. "Joseph,... not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily."

3.

Open to common or general use; as, a public road; a public house. "The public street."

public act or public statute (Law), an act or statute affecting matters of public concern. Of such statutes the courts take judicial notice.

Public credit. See under Credit.

Public funds. See Fund, 3.

Public house, an inn, or house of entertainment.

Public law.

(a)

See International law, under International.

(b)

A public act or statute.

Public nuisance. (Law) See under Nuisance.

Public orator. (Eng. Universities) See Orator, 3.

Public stores, military and naval stores, equipments, etc.

Public works, all fixed works built by civil engineers for public use, as railways, docks, canals, etc.; but strictly, military and civil engineering works constructed at the public cost.

noun

Public n.

1.

The general body of mankind, or of a nation, state, or community; the people, indefinitely; as, the American public; also, a particular body or aggregation of people; as, an author's public. "The public is more disposed to censure than to praise."

2.

A public house; an inn. (Scot.)

In public, openly; before an audience or the people at large; not in private or secrecy. "We are to speak in public."

See images of 'Public'

Etymology of 'Public'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Public" Quotes from Famous Books

... to speak to you on the subject, Madame, especially in public; but since you anticipate my desire, I admit I am waiting with deep anxiety for one word from you which will decide ...

— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... follower and sycophant and a literary debauchee. Milton was publicist. Burns, loving and longing for courts and society, was enforced in his seclusion, and therefore angry at it. Wordsworth dwelt apart from men, as one who lives far from a public thoroughfare, where neither the dust nor bustle of travel can touch his bower of quiet; in its quality of isolation, Grasmere was an island in remote seas. Keats was a lad, dreaming in some dim Greek temple, listening to a fountain's plash at midnight ...

— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... to be made more onerous, and the great host of creditors who did not desire that their debtors should be embarrassed and possibly rendered unable to liquidate, united on the practical side of the question and aroused public opinion against the course of the Treasury Department. An individual, by an effort of will, can bring himself to endure present inconvenience and even suffering, for a great good that lies beyond, but it was difficult for forty millions of ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... apprehensions were for the future. The present must be a time of action. If only to-night's coup de main should come off successfully, he might cross the Atlantic with his prey, and remain in safe seclusion till the outrage had been so far forgotten by the public that those at home whom it most affected would be unwilling to rekindle the embers of a scandal half-smothered and dying out. Tom Ryfe was not without ready money. He calculated he could live for at least a year in some foreign clime, far beyond the ...

— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... from duty, admitted that, "by an incredible misfortune," the young Mohammed had been enticed away from him. He feared, Hassan ben Saad added, to make a disturbance, as an influential friend—Captain Sabine—advised him to inform the marabout of what had happened before taking public action which the child's father ...

— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com