People(s) vs. Person(s)

The words people and person derive from different Latin roots, the former from populum, referring to the people in the sense of the populace, the latter from persona, “an actor’s mask; a character in a play” and which in the English form person came to refer to an individual human being.

In Victorian times, the pseudo-rule grew up that the plural of person is persons when a specific, countable number of individuals is meant, but that people should be used when the number is large or indefinite.

The plural form peoples logically refers to more than one community or nation, although down the centuries some writers have been chary of it, and in the nineteenth century one described its use as “uncouth”.

Source: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/people.htm

As these nouns are commonly misused, let’s go for some definitions and examples:

PEOPLE

Noun: peoples  

1.   The human beings of a particular nation, community or ethnic group
"the indigenous peoples of Australia"

Noun: people  

1.   (plural) any group of human beings (men, women or children) collectively
"old people"; "there were at least 200 people in the audience"

 

2.   The body of citizens of a state or country

"the Spanish people";

 

3.   Members of a family line

"his people have been farmers for generations"; "are your people still alive?"

 

4.   The common people generally

"power to the people";

Verb: people  

1.   Fill with people

"Stalin wanted to people the empty steppes"

PERSON

Noun: person (people,persons)

  1.   A human being

"there was too much for one person to do";

2.   A human body (usually including the clothing)

"a weapon was hidden on his person" 

3.   A grammatical category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms according to whether they indicate the speaker, the addressee, or a third party
"stop talking about yourself in the third person"

Source: www.wordwebonline.com