Posse started out as a technical term in law, part of the term "posse comitatus," which in Medieval Latin meant power or authority of the county. As such, it referred to a group of citizens summoned by a 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 mean any group organized to make a search or embark on a mission. 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 in concert.
The sheriff and his posse rode out to look for the bandits. I went to the game with my posse.
Recent Examples on the WebThe remix/epic posse cut features new verses from City Girls’ JT, BIA, Katie Got Bandz, Akbar V, and Maliibu Miitch. Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2022 The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country as a member of the famed filmmaker’s regular posse, has died. Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 July 2022 This week, Cardi B’s got a killer posse cut, J-Hope steps out on his own and Calvin Harris keeps the summer rolling. Jason Lipshutz, Billboard, 1 July 2022 Every day of the trial, a small posse of blond women in professional garb arrived and sat together, observing. Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, 6 June 2022 The book, which Jesse gives to the illiterate Obobo (Tom Lister, Jr.), the posse’s mightiest warrior, takes on a symbolic function—an artistic trace of a history that, then as now, is at risk of suppression. Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 18 Aug. 2022 Their personas complement each other while thriving during their turn on the mic, setting up one of the stronger posse cuts of the summer. Mitchell Peters, Billboard, 10 July 2022 If there was any substance to that, the posse failed to reach the barn. Bryce Millercolumnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 July 2022 During that first mass meeting, Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark brought a posse of White men to line the church’s walls and intimidate those in attendance.Washington Post, 4 Oct. 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Medieval Latin posse comitatus, literally, power or authority of the county