Library / English Dictionary

POLICE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The force of policemen and officers

Example:

the law came looking for him

Synonyms:

constabulary; law; police; police force

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("police" is a kind of...):

force; personnel (group of people willing to obey orders)

law enforcement agency (an agency responsible for insuring obedience to the laws)

Meronyms (members of "police"):

officer; police officer; policeman (a member of a police force)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "police"):

European Law Enforcement Organisation; Europol (police organization for the European Union; aims to improve effectiveness and cooperation among European police forces)

gendarmerie; gendarmery (French police force; a group of gendarmes or gendarmes collectively)

Mutawa; Mutawa'een (religious police in Saudi Arabia whose duty is to ensure strict adherence to established codes of conduct; offenders may be detained indefinitely; foreigners are not excluded)

Mounties; RCMP; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the federal police force of Canada)

New Scotland Yard; Scotland Yard (the detective department of the metropolitan police force of London)

secret police (a police force that operates in secrecy (usually against persons suspected of treason or sedition))

Schutzstaffel; SS (special police force in Nazi Germany founded as a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler in 1925; the SS administered the concentration camps)

posse; posse comitatus (a temporary police force)

Derivation:

police (maintain the security of by carrying out a patrol)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Maintain the security of by carrying out a patrol

Synonyms:

patrol; police

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "police" is one way to...):

guard (to keep watch over)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

police (the force of policemen and officers)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The ideal case would be to combine both methods, strategic interviewing and thermography, moving our system to, for example, police stations, airports or refugee camps.

(The most reliable scientific model to date for detecting when a person is lying, based on thermography, University of Granada)

If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, call the police or your local child welfare agency.

(Child Abuse, NIH)

A classic Doppler effect example is how the pitch of a police siren drops once it passes.

(Astronomers Study How Quasars Are Powered by Accretion Disks, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The whole central traffic of London was held up, and many collisions were reported between the demonstrators upon the one side and the police and taxi-cabmen upon the other.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be transported.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Causes of death attributable to homicide or resulting from legal police intervention.

(Homicide and Legal Intervention, NCI Thesaurus)

She answered, I'll take it, and it was cut off and paid for, and Sallie had exulted, and she had laughed as if it were a thing of no consequence, and driven away, feeling as if she had stolen something, and the police were after her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons brought from the different countries in which he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police that his club was among his trophies.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No; I shall be my own police.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You come to my shop, came the reply, an' I'll send for the police.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)