Key Difference: ‘People’ is used to refer to human beings. It denotes a group of human beings or persons. It can also be expressed as a collective term to refer to human beings. On the other hand, pupil denotes a person that is taught by a teacher. Pupil is a singular term, but can be used as 'pupils' to denote more than one pupil.

People and pupil both, can create confusion as they both sound somewhat similar and have many letters in common. However, they both are totally different to each other.

'People', this term generally denotes human beings in general or is used  to refer them collectively. It can also be associated with persons. ‘People’ is not used for a single human being.

For example: - He is a nice people

This sentence is wrong, as people cannot be used to refer to one person. Instead of people in the sentence, person should be used.

They are good people. However, in this sentence we can replace people by persons as both are referring to human beings.

'People' can sometimes also be used as peoples (plural form); it is used in this form to denote the members of a particular nation, community, or ethnic group. For example: - The native peoples of the United States of America.

Sometimes it is casually used to denote one’s supporters or employees. For example:- His company is growing because of his hard working people.

On the other hand, pupil is used for a person who is taught by another person, especially by a teacher. Pupil cannot be used for any person. Pupil can also be used as pupils, denoting more than one pupil.

Let us consider some examples for further clarification. The thing to remember is that a pupil is always related to the supervision or a teaching by a teacher. Anyone who is taught or guided by a teacher can be considered as a pupil. It includes the students enrolled in a school or a college as well as children taking private tuitions. Pupil is generally associated with children.

1. 1. He was happy to meet his pupils.
2. 2. She wanted to be his pupil.
3. 3. Pupils and teachers share a very special bond.

All the pupils can be referred to as people (pupils are basically group of people with an additional condition), whereas all the human beings as people cannot be necessarily considered as pupils (as people might or might not be assoiciated with the learning from a teacher).

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