posse

English

Etymology

Ellipsis of posse comitatus.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒ.si/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.si/
• Rhymes: -ɒsi

Noun

posse (plural posses)

1. A group or company of people, originally especially one having hostile intent; a throng, a crowd.
   • 1972, Mortimer J. Adler with Charles Van Doren, chapter 3, in How to Read a Book, Touchstone September 2014 edition, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, →OCLC, page 23:

     It is traditional in America to criticize the schools; for more than a century, parents, self-styled experts, and educators themselves have attacked and indicted the educational system. No aspect of schooling has been more severely criticized than reading instruction. The current books have a long ancestry, and every innovation carries in its train a posse of suspicious and, one feels, unpersuadable observers.

2. (now historical, in later use chiefly US) A group of people summoned to help law enforcement.

   Coordinate term: vigilante

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., , →OCLC:

     He […] no sooner set his nose within the room to which he was directed, than the constable and his posse sprung upon him, before he had the least intimation of his design, or any opportunity of acting in his own defence.

   • 1986, Donald R. Lavash, Sheriff William Brady, Tragic Hero of the Lincoln County War, Sunstone Press, →ISBN, page 77:

     Mathews then appointed Morton as a deputy sheriff and after a posse had been selected, they went in pursuit of the criminals. Within a few hours, the posse overtook the thieves.

   • 2013, Andrew C. Isenberg, Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life, Hill and Wang, →ISBN, page 165:

     While Wyatt dismounted and aimed his shotgun at Brocius, the rest of his posse retreated.

3. (US) A search party.
4. (US, Jamaica, slang) A criminal gang.
   • 1997, Michael D. Lyman, Organized Crime, Prentice Hall, page 287:

     Jamaican posses can be traced back to the Jamaican neighborhoods, and posse names correspond to the names of each neighborhood in which the gangs operate.

5. (colloquial) A group of (especially young) people seen as constituting a peer group or band of associates; a gang, a group of friends.
   • 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 4:

     Hey, sir? Sir, excuse me?” The blonde was calling out to him, in imperious tones that insisted on a reply. […] She was breaking a rule of big-city life, breaking it brazenly, sure of her power, confident of her turf and posse, fearing nothing.

   • 2014, April Boyd-Noronha, The Soul of a Single Parent: How to Snapback and Get Your SWAG On, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 77:

     But the few friends that I DO have are my “ride or die” chicks—my posse.

Derived terms

Related terms

• in posse

Translations

References

Further reading

• “posse”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• posse comitatus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Jamaican posse on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• ESOPs, pesos, poses, s'pose, sopes, speos, spose

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowed from English posse.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈposːe/,
• Rhymes: -osːe
• Syllabification^(key): pos‧se

Noun

posse (slang)

1. posse, crew, gang

Declension

Further reading

• “posse”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03

Franco-Provençal

Noun

posse f

1. udder, teat

   Synonym: uvro

Jamaican Creole

Etymology

From English posse.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.sɪ/
• Hyphenation: po‧sse

Noun

posse (plural posse dem, quantified posse)

1. criminal crew; gang; posse

   Nuh walk inna posse, mi nuh walk inna gang.

   I don't belong to any criminal crews. I don't belong to any gangs.

See also

• backitive
• crew
• Klansman
• One Order
• Shower Posse

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpos.se/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpos.se/,

Verb

posse

1. present active infinitive of possum  "to be able (to)"

Noun

posse n (indeclinable)

1. power, ability
2. potentiality, capability of being
3. (Late Latin) force, body of men
4. (Medieval Latin) territory, dominion

References

• “"possum", see "Posse as subst. (poet.)"”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• posse in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) to be scarcely able to restrain one's laughter: risum tenere vix posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be scarcely able to restrain one's laughter: risum aegre continere posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be hardly able to restrain one's tears: lacrimas tenere non posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be hardly able to restrain one's tears: fletum cohibere non posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be unable to speak for emotion: prae lacrimis loqui non posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be unable to sleep: somnum capere non posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to have great influence with a person; to have considerable weight: multum auctoritate valere, posse apud aliquem
    
  • (ambiguous) to have great weight as a speaker: multum dicendo valere, posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to be unable to say all one wants: verbis non omnia exsequi posse
    
  • (ambiguous) to have a powerful navy: navibus plurimum posse
    

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin posse (“power, ability”).

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: pos‧se

Noun

posse f (plural posses)

1. possession, land
2. (uncountable) ownership
3. (uncountable, politics) command
   • 2015 November 26, São José Almeida, “Cavaco deverá sublinhar desafios ao dar posse a Costa”, in Público‎:

     No Palácio da Ajuda, tomarão posse todos os membros do Governo, os 17 ministros e os 41 secretários de Estado, numa cerimónia conjunta à imagem do que aconteceu a 30 de Outubro, com o XX Governo, liderado por Pedro Passos Coelho.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)