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he word for today is…

posse (noun):

1: a large group often with a common interest
2: a body of persons summoned by a sheriff to assist in preserving the public peace usually in an emergency
3: a group of people temporarily organized to make a search (as for a lost child)

Source : Merriam -Webster

Etymology : Posse started out in English as part of a term from common law, posse comitatus, which in Medieval Latin translates as “power or authority of the county.” Posse comitatus referred to a group of citizens summoned by a reeve (a medieval official) or 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 refer to any group organized to make a search or embark on a mission, and today one may read about posses organized for search and rescue efforts. 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 together for some shared purpose.

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