folx

English

Etymology

Variant of folks. While the word was already gender-neutral, the suffix -x is a deliberate social signal of awareness of sexual minorities. Compare English Latinx.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fəʊks/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /foʊks/, (nonstandard) /foʊlks/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊks

Noun

folx pl (plural only)

1. Alternative spelling of folks [1600s],
2. Eye dialect spelling of folks, representing African-American Vernacular English. [1800s]
   • 1628 February 26, George Thomas Clark, quoting Thomas Button, Some account of sir Robert Mansel ... and of sir Thomas Button, Dowlais, published 1883, page 86:

     I presume yo_r lo. will fynde to be very stronge besides the qualitie of the peticonars to be lookte vppon, whoe if they be noe other then as folx [also fox] is stilde mear mariners, it cannot promise muche of their extraordinarie performancis, as hath bin made appeare formerlye in this perticuler designe, [...]

   • 1857, Julius Caesar Hannibal, Black Diamonds, Or, Humor, Satire, and Sentiment, page 183:

     De kommitte told me dere wus a great gedderin ob de culored folx at Brudder Jonson's Eatin House, [...]

   • 1879, M. Star, in The American Temperance Cyclopaedia of History (Joseph Beaumont Wakeley), page 185, ostensibly quoting one Missa Param:

     If some do, da hypocrites, and dat don't militate 'gains de siety; for cause da some hypocrites, dat proves dat some good folx.

3. (now chiefly Internet slang, especially in LGBTQ slang and communities of color) Folks; people.
   • 2004, Maximum Rocknroll, number 255:

     This time around the fine folx of Rocktober bring us the greatest rocknroll^[sic] moments in television history.

   • 2018, Joshua Whitehead, Jonny Appleseed, →ISBN:

     I write this book with the goal of showing you that Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous folx are not a “was,” that we are [...still present.] […]

Anagrams

• FLOX, Flox, flox

Franco-Provençal

Etymology

Inherited from Latin falcem.

Noun

folx m (plural folx)

1. (ORB, broad) scythe

   Synonym: dâly

References

• faux in DicoFranPro: Dictionnaire Français/Francoprovençal – on dicofranpro.llm.umontreal.ca
• folx in Lo trèsor Arpitan – on arpitan.eu

Further information

• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 1403: “la falce fienaia” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
• ALF: Atlas Linguistique de la France^[2] [Linguistic Atlas of France] – map 546: “faux” – on lig-tdcge.imag.fr
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “falx”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 3: D–F, page 404