People (singular "person") is a plurality of human beings. It has two usages:

• as the plural of person (in addition to the rarer plural, "persons") or a group of people (grammatically, a suppletive plural and collective noun; e.g. "some people are..."), or otherwise for groups with particular unifying traits, qualities, properties, or characteristics (e.g. the people of Spain, or the people of the Plains).
• as a singular for an indefinite ethnic group or nation (e.g. "a people is...")

Because the word people often refers to abstract and general types of groups, the word persons is sometimes used in place of people, especially when it would be ambiguous with its collective sense (e.g. missing persons instead of people). It can collectively refer to all humans or it can be used to identify a certain ethnic or religious group. For example, "people of color" is a phrase used in North America to describe non-whites.

Noun

people m. (plural peoples)

1. (countable) A celebrity, a famous person.
   • 2004, Emmanuel Davidenkoff and Didier Hassoux, Luc Ferry: une comédie du pouvoir, 2002–2004 (Luc Ferry: A Comedy of Power, 2002–2004), Hachette, ISBN 9782012357785,

     Le novice en politique contre le mammouth « Éducation nationale ». Ça mérite la sympathie. Et puis c’est un people. Les gens aiment et détestent à la fois. Ils sont fascinés. Le bonheur sur papier glacé. Les vacances entre Saint-Trop’, la Martinique et Deauville.

     The political novice against the mammoth "National Education". That merited sympathy. Then, too, he was a celebrity. People loved and hated at the same time. They were fascinated. Happiness on ice paper. Vacations between Saint-Tropez, Martinique, and Deauville.

   • 2008, Martine Delvaux, "L’égoïsme romantique de Frédéric Beigbeder" ("Frédéric Beigbeder's L’égoïsme romantique (Romantic Egotism)"), in Alain-Philippe Durand (editor), Frédéric Beigbeder et ses doubles (Frédéric Beigbeder and His Doubles), Rodopi, ISBN 978-90-420-2472-4, page 95:

     Oscar Dufresne est un people anti-people, un macho impuissant, un intellectuel qui ne dit rien d’intelligent, un faux sadique et un faux masochiste, un anti-autobiographe.

     Oscar Dufresne is a celebrity who is anti-celebrity, a powerless macho man, an intellectual who says nothing intelligent, a fake sadist and a fake masochist, an anti-autobiographer.

• The French noun people is frequently italicized as a loanword, as in the quotations above.

Quotes about people

Sourced

• A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.
  • Agent K in the film Men in Black

• Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.
  • Glen Bateman, The Stand (C&U), 3rd paragraph of Chapter 42, by Stephen King

• I judge people by what they might be,—not are, nor will be.
  • Robert Browning, English poet. A Soul’s Tragedy, Act II

• The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on.
  • Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), American poet. The People, Yes (1936)