Volk

Volk

1. A surname.

From Middle High German volc, from Old High German folc, from Proto-West Germanic *folk, Proto-Germanic *fulką.

Cognate with Dutch volk, English folk, Swedish folk, Norwegian Bokmål folk, Norwegian Nynorsk folk, Icelandic fólk and Danish folk. Doublet of Pulk.

• IPA^(key): /fɔlk/

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

• Homophone: folg (not for all speakers)

Volk n (strong, genitive Volkes or Volks, plural Völker, diminutive Völkchen n or Völklein n)

1. (collective) people, nation, folk, tribe, race (group united by culture, history, descent, and/or language)
   • 2024 May 28, Ralph Janik, “Der Anerkennung Palästinas fehlt die Grundlage [A basis is lacking for the recognition of Palestine]”, in Der Pragmaticus‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 May 2024:

     Ebenso gibt es ein palästinensisches Volk. Aus Sicht des Selbstbestimmungsrechts reicht es aus, dass eine ausreichende Anzahl von Menschen sich zusammengehörig fühlt und historisch ein bestimmtes Gebiet für sich beansprucht. Allfällige Exkurse zur geschichtlichen Genese der Palästinenser oder gar Versuche, sie letztlich als Jordanier oder schlichtweg Araber „wie alle anderen“ darzustellen, sind dabei irrelevant.

     Likewise, there is a Palestinian people. From the viewpoint of the right to self-determination, it suffices that a sufficient number of persons feel themselves belonging together and claim for themselves a certain territory historically. Potential excursuses into the historical genesis of the Palestinians or even attempts, to depict them ultimately as Jordanians or simply Arabs “like all others”, are thereby irrelevant.

   • 2025 May 23, Matthias Koster, X (post); screenshotted and translated into English by Quds News Network, transl., X‎^[2], 2025 June 12:

     Israel begeht im Gazastreifen alleine schon deshalb keinen Völkermord, weil die Opfer überhaupt gar kein Volk im Sinne der Völkermordkonvention sind.

     Israel cannot be committing a genocide in the Gaza Strip because the victims are not a people in the sense of the genocide convention.

2. people, population, citizens
3. (possibly dated) common people, the lower classes, the working classes
4. folk, crowd (large group of people gathered somewhere)
5. (biology) herd, covey, swarm, colony; chiefly of insects

• Pulk
• Leute
• Mensch
• Nation

• “Volk” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Volk” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “Volk” in Duden online
• Volk on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de

From Middle High German volk, from Old High German folk, from Proto-West Germanic *folk.

Compare German Volk, Dutch volk, English folk.

Volk n

1. people, folk

From volk (“wolf”).

• IPA^(key): /ʋɔ́ːʋk/

Vȏlk m anim

1. a surname