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Posse started out in English as part of a term from common law, posse comitatus, which in Medieval Latin translates as “power or authority of the county.” Posse comitatus referred to a group of citizens summoned by a reeve (a medieval official) or sheriff to preserve the public peace as allowed for by law. “Preserving the public peace” so often meant hunting down a supposed criminal that posse eventually came to refer to any group organized to make a search or embark on a mission, and today one may read about posses organized for search and rescue efforts. In even broader use it can refer to any group, period. Sometimes nowadays that group is a gang or a rock band but it can as easily be any group—of politicians, models, architects, tourists, children, or what have you—acting together for some shared purpose.
Examples of posse in a Sentence
ArsTechnica, 11 July 2025
There’s another practical roadblock: The U.S. is led by a billionaire president who has surrounded himself with a posse of billionaires, all of whom are likely to oppose wealth tax proposals.
—Danielle Chemtob, Forbes.com, 8 July 2025
He was shot down by a sheriff’s posse in Oklahoma in 1911.
—Los Angeles Times, 4 July 2025
Experts slammed Bragg and his posse of prosecutors, claiming their case was the weakest of the four.
—Barnini Chakraborty, The Washington Examiner, 15 June 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Posse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/posse. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
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posse
noun
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