popular

1. 1

   Common among the general public; generally accepted.

   • Contrary to popular misconception, MacArthur Park is not the worst song ever written.
   • Recent evidence demonstrates that caffeine addiction is becoming popular worldwide.
2. 2

   Concerning the people; public.

3. 3

   Pertaining to or deriving from the people or general public.

   • Luther in popular memory had become a saint, his picture capable of saving houses from burning down, if it was fixed to the parlour wall.
   • Jonathan Freedland brilliantly articulates the size and nature of the challenge and we must take his lead in setting out a radical agenda for a new republic based on the principle of popular sovereignty.
4. 4

   Of low birth, not noble; vulgar, plebian.obsolete

   • Popular and shallow-headed mindes, cannot perceive the grace or comelinesse, nor judge of a smooth and quaint discourse.
5. 5

   Aimed at ordinary people, as opposed to specialists etc.; intended for general consumption.

   • As a work of popular science it is exemplary: the focus may be the numbers, but most of the mathematical legwork is confined to the appendices and the accompanying commentary is amusing and witty, as well as informed.
6. 6

   Cultivating the favour of the common people.obsolete

   • Such popular humanity is treason.
7. 7

   Liked by many people; generally pleasing, widely admired.

   • They might have split 24 years ago, but the Smiths remain as popular as ever, and not just among those who remember them first time around.
   • The Australian teens, both from Melbourne, were enjoying a backpacking trip when they became ill after a night out in Vang Vieng. The picturesque rural town in northern Laos has long been a popular backpacking spot.
8. 8

   Adapted to the means of the common people; cheap.

ant. anonymous · unpopular

1. 1

   A person who is popular, especially at a school.

   • To pass time, Nicole (Tammy Lynn Michaels), the most vicious of the populars, decides they should play a little game. Earlier that day, in their feminist studies class, the women were discussing Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a n
2. 2

   An inexpensive newspaper with wide circulation.in-plural

   • Serious newspapers boomed; the populars became tabloid supplements to television, with the television schedules and related features increasingly the core of the newspaper.
3. 3

   A member of the Populares

   • [...] when their ambassadors were come from Samos, and that they saw not only the populars, but also some others of their own party thought trusty before, to be now changed.