# vox populi

idiom · CEFR C2 · Formal

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/vox-populi
Updated: 2026-08-03

## 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.

## 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.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.