Word.ws English Dictionary

posse comitatus

posse comitatus noun: the able-bodied men over 15 in a given county who can be summoned by the sheriff to help keep the peace, or arrest a felon; also a group of men so gathered.

Noun

posse comitatus

  1. (historical) The able-bodied men over 15 in a given county who can be summoned by the sheriff to help keep the peace, or arrest a felon; also a group of men so gathered.
    • They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.1849, Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government
  2. (figuratively) Any band of men, especially armed or hostile.
    • With him retired his ‘posse comitatus,’ / The attorney last, who linger'd near the door / Reluctantly […]1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, section I

Origin of posse comitatus

From Late Latin posse comitātūs (“force of the county”, literally “power of the county”).

Words formed from posse comitatus

Questions about posse comitatus

What does posse comitatus mean?
Posse comitatus means the able-bodied men over 15 in a given county who can be summoned by the sheriff to help keep the peace, or arrest a felon; also a group of men so gathered.
What part of speech is posse comitatus?
Posse comitatus is a noun.

Words near posse comitatus in the dictionary

  1. posqim
  2. poss
  3. poss.
  4. possa
  5. posse
  6. posse comitatus
  7. possed
  8. posseman
  9. possemen
  10. possentrie
  11. posser

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: posse comitatus (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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