Idiom
vox populi
Formal Roman origin
Meaning
The opinion of ordinary people, taken as a verdict.
Examples
“The referendum result was the vox populi, and the government accepted it.”
“The programme filled its last two minutes with vox pop interviews outside the station.”
“Every party invoked the vox populi that week, each of them reading the same turnout figures as clear confirmation of the position it had already held.”
Examples
simple
“The referendum result was the vox populi, and the government accepted it.”
contextual
“The programme filled its last two minutes with vox pop interviews outside the station.”
complex
“Every party invoked the vox populi that week, each of them reading the same turnout figures as clear confirmation of the position it had already held.”
Origin
Vox populi is simply "the voice of the people", and it is Roman in the sense that mattered to Rome: the populus was a constitutional body with real power, and Cicero's speeches appeal to its voice constantly, as something a politician ignores at his own cost.
The famous long form — vox populi, vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God — is not classical. It first appears in a letter Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne in 798, and Alcuin cites it only to reject it: those who keep saying this, he warns, should be ignored, because the crowd is always close to madness. The tag survived; the warning attached to it did not.
English uses vox populi for public opinion treated as authoritative, and the clipped form vox pop for the broadcast version — the reporter with a microphone stopping strangers in the street.
Stories
Rome the City · See all Roman origin
The roads, the Forum, and the city that took centuries to build.
all roads lead to Rome — Different paths can take one to the same goal.
Rome wasn't built in a day — It takes a long time to create something complicated or impressive.
when in Rome, do as the Romans do — It is wise to adapt to the circumstances; it is wise to follow common custom.
Forum — a place where people can share ideas and talk about specific topics. In the digital world, it is a website where you can post messages and reply to others.
- Level
- C2 · Proficiency
- Updated