peoplehood

noun

peo·​ple·​hood ˈpē-pəl-ˌhu̇d How to pronounce peoplehood (audio)
1
: the quality or state of constituting a people
2
: the awareness of the underlying unity that makes the individual a part of a people

Examples of peoplehood in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Still, some powerful feeling of peoplehood, of a commandment being violated, swept over me. — Nicholas Lemann, New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2026 Through addiction, recovery, infertility, and, urgently, a search for both selfhood and peoplehood, and towards home. — Eliana Ramage september 4, Literary Hub, 4 Sep. 2025 Jewish peoplehood, communal autonomy, and distinct national or ethnic consciousness were to dissolve into the universalist framework of the emerging nation-state. — Kenneth L. Marcus, Boston Herald, 13 Apr. 2026 Blue-water empires engaged in ghastly policies, but when demands emerged in the colonies for self-determination, Britain or France shed their imperial possessions without reducing or questioning their own senses of peoplehood. — John Connelly, The New York Review of Books, 18 Dec. 2025 By the time Zelensky came of age, three or four generations of Soviet Jews had experienced their Jewish identity as a hollow thing, nothing but a black mark on a passport and a sense of peoplehood born of exclusion and a second-class status. — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 27 Feb. 2022 There are five main injuries of slavery that still affect the Black community today including peoplehood and nationhood; education; health; criminal punishment; and wealth and poverty, according to NCOBRA. — Maya Brown, CNN, 26 Feb. 2022 The pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe and other developments, including the 1967 War, moved Reform Jews to strongly emphasize the need to defend Israel as essential to Jewish peoplehood and self-determination. — Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1899, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of peoplehood was circa 1899

Rhymes for peoplehood

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Browse Nearby Words

peopledom
peoplehood
peopleize
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Cite this Entry

“Peoplehood.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peoplehood. Accessed 8 Jul. 2026.

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