The ancient Greek word for “city” is “polis.” The Greek word “polites” (pronounced with three syllables) is derived from “polis” and means “citizen,” and THAT word led to “politikos,” which means “having to do with citizens.” Latin adopted “politikos,” where it became “politicus,” and that led eventually to English (which adopts everything) and “politics.”
The English words “politician,” “political,” and “policy” all came from the same roots. But the origin of “police” is slightly different. The same Latin words formed the basis of similar words in French, and “police” comes from the Middle French version of “police,” which meant what we mean by “policy” rather than either people with a particular job or the organization they work for. By the 1500s the English word “police” meant “the governing body of a community” — something like a town council. It took a couple more centuries, but around the 1700s “police” had come to mean an organization that maintained law and order. Another century passed, and “police” began to be used as a verb, meaning to keep things neat and clean. It’s still used that way, mostly in the military. The verb form of “police” is closely related to the obsolete meaning “maintain good governance.”
In England, of course, another word for “police officer” is “constable;” a term that has nothing to do with the root “polis.” Instead, it comes from the Latin “comes stabuli,” which (believe it or not) means the “count of the stable” (“count” in the sense of the noble title, not how many horses you have). “Constable” originally meant the head of the servant staff in a palace. Then, possibly because the job seemed to be so similar, it meant a military commander. Around the 1400s it began to be applied to the people keeping law and order. At that time the word “police” existed, but at that time referred to the organization of the community — so in a sense a constable worked for the police, policing behavior in the community.
“City” and “citizen” come from Latin rather than Greek. In Latin a city was “urbs” (sounds like “suburbs”, right?) and a resident was a “civis”. That came into Old French as “citeien” (for some reason any number of Latin words lost their “v” sounds and spellings in French). When “cite” (city) and “citeien” (city dweller) entered English, of course, there were already Old English words for both. In Old English a city was “burh” and someone who lived there was a “burhsittend.” But those words didn’t entirely disappear. “Burh” became “borough.” If a town in those days was fortified with castle walls, it was a “burg” in Old English, and you can still see “burg” in city names like “Pittsburgh,” even though it’s not surrounded by a wall (yet).
With such a conglomeration of terms from Greek, Latin, Old French, and Old English, it’s no wonder the whole field of governance seems so mixed up.
