Word.ws English Dictionary

man of the people

man of the people noun: a man, usually a celebrity or political leader, who shows understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people, and who has a rapport with and acceptance by them.

Noun

man of the people (plural men of the people)

  1. (idiomatic) A man, usually a celebrity or political leader, who shows understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people, and who has a rapport with and acceptance by them.
    • He could hang about a bar-room, discussing the affairs of the nation, for twelve hours together; and in that time could hold forth with more intolerable dulness, chew more tobacco, smoke more tobacco, drink more rum-toddy, mint-julep, gin-sling, and cocktail, than any private gentleman of his...1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter XVI, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, pages 202–203
    • Colonel, you are the man, you could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of Missouri; [...]1873, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Charles Dudley Warner, chapter XIX, in The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, published 1874, →OCLC...

Examples of man of the people in a sentence

  • This made him an orator and a man of the people.1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter XVI, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […]...
  • It was the story of a man of the people who made good and kept his integrity, who understood the people and could make them laugh and cry.1981 July 27, Serge Schmemann, “Adulation Grows after Death of Soviet Folk Hero Vysotsky”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Oct 2013:
  • He is adored by millions as a man of the people because he is of a lower caste — a rarity among politicians.2008 February 28, Simon Robinson, “Working on the Railroad: On the Mangala Lakshadweep Express”, in Time, retrieved 16 Oct 2013:

Forms of man of the people

pluralmen of the people

Questions about man of the people

What does man of the people mean?
Man of the people means a man, usually a celebrity or political leader, who shows understanding of and sympathy for the concerns of ordinary people, and who has a rapport with and acceptance by them.
How do you use man of the people in a sentence?
This made him an orator and a man of the people.
What part of speech is man of the people?
Man of the people is a noun.
What is the plural of man of the people?
The plural of man of the people is men of the people.

Words near man of the people in the dictionary

  1. man of the frock
  2. man of the hour
  3. man of the house
  4. man of the match
  5. man of the moment
  6. man of the people
  7. man of the world
  8. man of war
  9. man on
  10. man on horseback
  11. man on the Bondi tram

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: man of the people (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-man of the people.ogg.

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