públiques

Públiques is a Catalan adjective meaning “public,” used to describe feminine plural nouns. In Catalan, adjectives agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify, so the feminine plural form públiques corresponds to feminine plural nouns such as institucions públiques or escoles públiques. The masculine plural form is públics, and the feminine singular form is pública.

Etymology and cognates: públiques derives from the Latin publicus, and has cognates in other Romance languages, including Spanish públicas, French publiques, and Italian pubbliche. The Catalan form preserves the same semantic core of belonging to the community or the state rather than being private.

Usage and meaning: públiques is used to refer to institutions, services, or activities that are provided or regulated by the public sector or open to the general public. Common collocations include escoles públiques (public schools), biblioteques públiques (public libraries), and administracions públiques (public administrations). It is often contrasted with privades (private) or with terms relating to the public sector, such as sector públic.

Orthography and pronunciation: the word contains a digraph sequence common in Catalan orthography, with a diaeresis on u in certain spellings to indicate pronunciation before the following i. The accent on ú marks the stress pattern typical of Catalan multi-syllable words ending in -ques, and the final -iques signals the feminine plural adjective form. The pronunciation and spelling help distinguish it from masculine or singular forms.

See also: públic, pública, públics, privades, sector públic.