Learn English – Word for segment of the general population

single-word-requests

Today I was searching for a word that I'm fairly certain exists, but I can't find evidence of anywhere. I wanted to refer to a segment of the population, and I used the word "constituency" to describe a specific group of people. Apparently, this word has a specifically political context, e.g. "The senator's constituency voted him back into office."

Is there a word, specifically a word that sounds like constituency or contingency, that describes what I'm looking for? That is to say, a word that describes a segment of the population sans a political context.

Best Answer

Cohort

Could you be thinking of the word “cohort”? It starts with the letter “C,” and basically describes what you’re thinking of (albeit in a somewhat technical context): a segment of the population sharing some common element. Per Wikipedia:

In statistics, marketing and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who share a defining characteristic (typically subjects who experienced a common event in a selected time period, such as birth or graduation).

Or, according to Merriam-Webster:

A group of individuals having a statistical factor (as age or class membership) in common in a demographic study.

Community

This seems a little obvious, but it does start with a “C” and end in a “y,” and can describe a certain group within a population (“the medical community,” “the local community,” “the Scrabble-playing community." According to Google’s definition:

A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

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