públic

Públic is the Catalan word meaning “public,” used as both an adjective and a noun. It is written with an acute accent on the ú to indicate stress, and it forms gendered and plural variants: masculine singular públic, feminine singular pública, masculine plural públics, and feminine plural públiques.

Etymology and cognates: The term derives from Latin publicus, with a direct lineage into Catalan through the Romance language family. It has close cognates in other Romance languages, such as French public, Spanish público, and Portuguese público, though each language uses its own inflection and morphology.

Usage: As an adjective, públicos is used to describe things related to the state or the general population, for example sector públic (public sector) or administració pública (public administration). The feminine forms are pública and públiques when referring to female-noun phrases. As a noun, el públic means “the public” or “the audience,” as in El públic va aplaudir (The public applauded).

Regional and official status: Catalan is an official language in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia (where it has co-official status in some contexts), as well as in Andorra. In official, educational, and media usage, the form públic and its inflections appear in phrases describing public institutions, services, and the public sphere.

See also: Public (disambiguation), Catalan language, Romance languages.