street people

[ street pee-puhl ]

plural noun

1. people whose home is on the streets of a city; people who are unhoused or experiencing homelessness.
2. people who make their living on the streets, especially of large cities, as vendors or performers.
3. the people of a neighborhood, especially a poor and crowded big-city neighborhood, who frequent the streets of their area.

Word History and Origins

Origin of street people¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Then I tried to find my dorm room but got lost and wound up in a bad neighborhood, heckled by scary-looking street people who made fun of my mustache.

From Washington Post

But, as the crinkled and upturned noses of the techie rich attest, the city has an abundance of street people.

From The Daily Beast

In Amsterdam, alcoholic street people are doing public service work and getting paid each day, in part, with cans of beer.

From The Daily Beast

Those interred are a fraction of the 50,000 street people of Los Angeles, the largest population of homeless in the United States.

From The Daily Beast

The cops and the smarter street people knew that Dubuque had lost part of his left ear in a leveraged buyout on University Avenue.

From The Daily Beast

Going back to your regulatory capture idea, is Treasury too full of Wall Street people?

From The Daily Beast

As he passed along the street people paused to glance at him: he appeared so pale and scared.

From Project Gutenberg

In the street people were tobogganing in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window.

From Project Gutenberg

It is estimated that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street people to pick her hops.

From Project Gutenberg

All this looked suspicious to the man in the street People began to fear some terrible Popish plot.

From Project Gutenberg

Along the street people had begun to gather, with more of curiosity to see what might be seen than of apprehension.

From Project Gutenberg