Folk refers to people, especially ordinary people from a particular place or group. When someone talks about “country folk” or “city folk,” they mean the people who live in those places and share similar ways of life. Your folks can mean your parents or family: “I need to ask my folks if I can sleep over at your house.”

The word also describes traditional things passed down through generations of ordinary people rather than created by professionals or experts. Folk music consists of songs that communities sang and taught to their children for hundreds of years, like “Oh! Susanna” or “Home on the Range.” Folk tales are stories that people told and retold around fires and dinner tables long before anyone wrote them down, which is why we have different versions of tales like Cinderella from cultures around the world.

Folk traditions feel homemade and authentic because they come from regular people's lives rather than from formal institutions. A folk remedy might be your grandmother's special recipe for soothing a sore throat, knowledge passed down in your family rather than prescribed by a doctor. When something feels warm, unpretentious, and rooted in community tradition, it has that folk quality to it.