popularities

Noun

popularity (usually uncountable, plural popularities)

1. (usually) The quality or state of being popular; especially, the state of being widely liked or in favor with the people at large.
   • This destination has increased in popularity after great reviews in the guide books.
2. (archaic, usually) The quality or state of being adapted or pleasing to common, poor, or vulgar people
   • So this Gallant, labouring to avoid Popularity, falls into a habit of Affectation, Ten thousand times hatefuller than the former.1600, Ben Jonson, Every Man Out of His Humour
   1. (archaic, broadly, usually) cheapness; inferiority; vulgarity.
3. (archaic, usually) Something which obtains, or is intended to obtain, the favor of the vulgar; claptrap.
   • Popularities, and circumstances which […] sway the ordinary judgment.1597, Francis Bacon, The Colours or Good and Evil
4. (obsolete, usually) The act of courting the favour of the people.
   • Cato (the younger) charged Muraena, and indicted him in open court for popularity and ambition.1603, Plutarch, translated by Philemon Holland, Moralia
5. (archaic, usually) Public sentiment; general passion.
   • A little time be allowed for the madness of popularity to cease.1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [et al.], →OCLC