people vs townsfolk

people

noun
  • The mass of a community as distinguished from a special class (elite); the commonalty; the populace; the vulgar; the common crowd; the citizens. 

  • A person's ancestors, relatives or family. 

  • Persons forming or belonging to a particular group, such as a nation, class, ethnic group, country, family, etc. 

  • A group of persons regarded as being employees, followers, companions or subjects of a ruler. 

  • Used as plural of person; a body of human beings considered generally or collectively; a group of two or more persons. 

  • One's colleagues or employees. 

verb
  • To inhabit; to occupy; to populate. 

  • To become populous or populated. 

  • To stock with people or inhabitants; to fill as with people; to populate. 

  • To interact with people; to socialize. 

townsfolk

noun
  • The people who live in a town, especially the lower and middle classes. 

How often have the words people and townsfolk occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )