just folks

• just plain folks, regular folks

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just folks pl (plural only)

1. (idiomatic, sometimes used as if singular) Ordinary, unpretentious people; an ordinary, unpretentious person.
   • 1913, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 21, in The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch:

     "You still think they come all boxed, sorted, and labeled, do you?" he said. "And that they aren't ‘just folks’ at all?"
     "Yes, I still think so. They never seem a bit like ‘folks’ to me. It's their business to sit up there stiff and solemn and stern."

   • 1999, John Updike, Bech at Bay, →ISBN, page 24:

     He was happy . . . to be going out to a restaurant without having to sign books or talk to students about Whitman and Melville. . . . Idolized Bech loved, at the end of a long day impersonating himself, being just folks.

   • 2005 January 11, Ruth La Ferla, “What the First Lady Will Wear”, in New York Times, retrieved 4 December 2012:

     "She has gone from being just folks to being a bit imperial, assuming a bit more of a queenly role," said Ms. Allgor.

2. (idiomatic, attributively, sometimes hyphenated) Unpretentious, informal, down-to-earth.
   • 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC, page 43:

     Even his mussed cravat and cow licked hair had a "just folks" quality.

   • 2001 June 24, Margaret Carlson, “Shear Dismay”, in Time:

     George Bush's attempt at just-folks normalcy was undermined when he turned a blind eye to his chief of staff flying military jets to private appointments.

• folksy

• “just folks”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.