Word.ws English Dictionary

polises

polises 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

Questions about polises

What is polises the plural of?
Polises is the plural of polis.

Words near polises in the dictionary

  1. Poliquins
  2. polis
  3. Polisario Front
  4. Polisbet
  5. polisci
  6. polises
  7. polish
  8. polish a turd
  9. Polish alexandrine
  10. Polish bed
  11. Polish beds

Source and license

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