folx

folx pl (plural only)

1. Obsolete spelling of folks [1600s]
   • 1628 February 26, Thomas Button, in a letter to the Lord Vicount Dorchester, quoted in Some account of sir Robert Mansel ... and of sir Thomas Button (George Thomas Clark), page 86:

     I presume yo^r lo. will fynde to be very stronge besides the qualitie of the peticonars to be lookte vppon, whoe if they be noe other then as folx is stilde mear mariners, it cannot promise muche of their extraordinarie performancis, as hath bin made appeare formerlye in this perticuler designe, [...]

2. Eye dialect spelling of folks, representing African American Vernacular English. [1800s]
   • 1857, Julius Caesar Hannibal, Black Diamonds, Or, Humor, Satire, and Sentiment, page 183:

     De kommitte told me dere wus a great gedderin ob de culored folx at Brudder Jonson's Eatin House, [...]

   • 1879, M. Star, in The American Temperance Cyclopaedia of History (Joseph Beaumont Wakeley), page 185, ostensibly quoting one Missa Param:

     If some do, da hypocrites, and dat don't militate 'gains de siety; for cause da some hypocrites, dat proves dat some good folx.

3. (now chiefly Internet slang, especially in LGBT and communities of color) Folks; people.
   • 2004, Maximum Rocknroll, issue 255:

     This time around the fine folx of Rocktober bring us the greatest rocknroll^[sic] moments in television history.

   • 2018, Joshua Whitehead, Jonny Appleseed (→ISBN):

     I write this book with the goal of showing you that Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous folx are not a “was,” that we are [...still present.] […]

• FLOX, flox