Word.ws English Dictionary

poleis

/ˈpɒleɪz/

poleis is the plural of polis.

Meaning of polis

Noun (1)

polis (plural poleis or polises)

  1. (historical) A Greek city-state.
    • By the end of the century, poleis had been established throughout the Hellenic world, all bearing a marked family resemblance.2006, Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation, Atlantic Books 2007, page 161

Noun (2)

polis (countable and uncountable, plural polises)

  1. (Geordie, Ireland, Scotland, uncountable) The police.
    • 'Oh, don't bring in the polis on me, kind gentleman,' implored Mrs Laffey with redoubled fluency; 'the dirty, thievin' sergeant that set the lie against me a short while back over Mister Johnson's sthrayin' pullets, it's little justice I should ever see. Be the good kind gentleman—'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
  2. (Geordie, Ireland, Scotland, countable) A police officer.

See all 5 meanings of polis

Origin of poleis

From Ancient Greek πόλεις (póleis, “cities”), nominative plural form of πόλις (pólis, “city”).

Words formed from poleis

Questions about poleis

What is poleis the plural of?
Poleis is the plural of polis.
How do you pronounce poleis?
Poleis is pronounced /ˈpɒleɪz/ (UK).

Words near poleis in the dictionary

  1. Polehala
  2. polehead
  3. poleheads
  4. poleine
  5. poleines
  6. poleis
  7. Poleland
  8. poleless
  9. polelike
  10. polem-
  11. poleman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poleis (page history and authors); polis (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-poleis.wav.

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