Police vs. Cops — What's the Difference?

The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence.

A police officer.

A body of government employees trained in methods of law enforcement and crime prevention and detection and authorized to maintain the peace, safety, and order of the community.

One that regulates certain behaviors or actions

A body of persons with a similar organization and function

A cone-shaped or cylindrical roll of yarn or thread wound on a spindle.

(Archaic) Regulation and control of the affairs of a community, especially with respect to maintenance of order, law, health, morals, safety, and other matters affecting the public welfare.

Chiefly British A summit or crest, as of a hill.

(Informal) A group that admonishes, cautions, or reminds

To get hold of; gain or win

The cleaning of a military base or other military area

To perceive by one of the senses

The soldiers assigned to a specified maintenance duty.

To take unlawfully or without permission; steal.

To regulate, control, or keep in order with a law enforcement agency or other official group.

The connecting crook of a harrow.

To impose one's viewpoint or beliefs regarding, especially in an authoritarian way

To critique in a presumptuous or arrogant manner

To make (a military area, for example) neat in appearance

A public agency charged with enforcing laws and maintaining public order, usually being granted special privileges to do so, particularly

A department of local (usually municipal) government responsible for general law enforcement.

(UK) A branch of the Home Office responsible for general law enforcement within a specific territory.

Any of the formally enacted law enforcement agencies at various levels of government.

The staff of such a department or agency, particularly its officers; an individual police officer.

People who try to enforce norms or standards as if granted authority similar to the police.

Cleanup of a military facility, as a formal duty.

Synonym of administration, the regulation of a community or society.

(obsolete) policy.

(obsolete) polity, civilization, a regulated community.

(transitive) To enforce the law and keep order among (a group).

To clean up an area.

To enforce norms or standards upon.

A judicial and executive system, for the government of a city, town, or district, for the preservation of rights, order, cleanliness, health, etc., and for the enforcement of the laws and prevention of crime; the administration of the laws and regulations of a city, incorporated town, or borough.

That which concerns the order of the community; the internal regulation of a state.

The organized body of civil officers in a city, town, or district, whose particular duties are the preservation of good order, the prevention and detection of crime, and the enforcement of the laws.

Military police, the body of soldiers detailed to preserve civil order and attend to sanitary arrangements in a camp or garrison.

The cleaning of a camp or garrison, or the state a camp as to cleanliness.

To keep in order by police.

To make clean; as, to police a camp.

The force of policemen and officers;

Maintain the security of by carrying out a control