Adjective

Affecting a large area (e.g. the entire land or body); broad in extent; widely diffused.

*

*:It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic

Adjective

(en adjective)

Able to be seen or known by everyone; open to general view, happening without concealment.

* 2011 , Sandra Laville, The Guardian , 18 Apr 2011:

Earlier this month Godwin had to make a public apology to the family of Daniel Morgan after the collapse of a £30m inquiry into his murder in 1987.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.}}

Pertaining to all the people as a whole (as opposed a private group); concerning the whole country, community etc.

* 2010 , Adam Vaughan, The Guardian , 16 Sep 2010:

A mere 3% of the more than 1,000 people interviewed said they actually knew what the conference was about. It seems safe to say public awareness of the Convention on Biological Awareness in Nagoya - and its goal of safeguarding wildlife - is close to non-existent.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17, author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot

, title=Money just makes the rich suffer, volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.}}

Officially representing the community; carried out or funded by the state on behalf of the community.

* , chapter=22

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.}}

* 2004 , The Guardian , Leader, 18 Jun 2004:

But culture's total budget is a tiny proportion of all public spending; it is one of the government's most visible success stories.

Open to all members of a community; especially, provided by national or local authorities and supported by money from taxes.

* 2011 , David Smith, The Guardian , 10 May 2011:

Some are left for dead on rubbish tips, in refuge bags or at public toilets.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)

, volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}

(of a company) Traded publicly via a stock market.