Chinafolk

Chinafolk noun: chinese people.

Noun

Chinafolk pl (plural only)

(dated, plural, plural-only, rare) Chinese people.
- Of course the first thing that struck us were the queer wheelbarrows used by the native population in place of the jinrikishas adopted from Japan for the Europeans. They are a cross between a huge wheelbarrow and a jaunting car; they have a division up the centre like the latter, and sometimes you...1895, Douglas Sladen, “Shanghai”, in The Japs at Home. Fifth Edition: To Which Are Added for the First Time Some Bits of China. […], London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward, Lock & Bowden, […]...
- When reports were first current (Time, Feb. 6 et seq.) that 12,000,000 Chinese seem likely to die of famine before next Spring, most citizens of the U. S. confidently left the whole ghastly and appalling problem to the Red Cross. If they thought about it at all, they saw in their minds’ eye long...1928 December 10, “China: Sure to Die”, in Briton Hadden, Henry R[obinson] Luce, editors, Time: The Weekly Newsmagazine, volume XII, number 24, Chicago, Ill.: Time, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, “Foreign News”...

They are a cross between a huge wheelbarrow and a jaunting car; they have a division up the centre like the latter, and sometimes you will see a whole family of Chinafolk on the two sides.1895, Douglas Sladen, “Shanghai”, in The Japs at Home. Fifth Edition: To Which Are Added for the First Time Some Bits of China. […]...
If they thought about it at all, they saw in their minds’ eye long lines of Chinafolk, gratefully receiving huge bowls of steaming soup from white clad, starry-eyed young Red Cross nurses.1928 December 10, “China: Sure to Die”, in Briton Hadden, Henry R[obinson] Luce, editors, Time: The Weekly Newsmagazine, volume XII, number...
In Chinatown, the scene is animated, colorful and noisy, full of ordinary housewives and children and a host of quaint, quite extraordinary old Chinafolk.1969, Qantas Airways Australia, volumes 35–36, Sydney, N.S.W.: Qantas Airways Limited, →OCLC, page 8:

From China + folk, likely after Chinaman.

What does Chinafolk mean?: Chinafolk means chinese people.
How do you use Chinafolk in a sentence?: They are a cross between a huge wheelbarrow and a jaunting car; they have a division up the centre like the latter, and sometimes you will see a whole family of Chinafolk on the two sides.
What part of speech is Chinafolk?: Chinafolk is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinafolk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “Chinafolk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinafolk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.