community

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /kəˈmjuː.nə.ti/, US /kəˈmjuː.nə.t̬i/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English comunete (Scots comminite),^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French comuneté,^[5][3][2] later reshaped after its source Latin commūnitās (“fellowship, community”),^[6][7][2] from commūnis (“common, shared by all”).^[5][8] It is related to common.^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A body of people: 1375, in John Barbour's The Bruce.^[3] Etymonline gives the late 14th century for “people living in the same place” and “the common people”, as opposed to the rulers and clergy.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that Latin commūnitās was only a noun of quality, “fellowship”, and that the concrete sense “a society” arose in Medieval Latin.^[5] An Old English word for the idea was gemǣnscipe.^[5] The inhabitants of a district have been a community since 1426.^[10] “Common ownership or enjoyment” and “a group with common interests” date from about 1400,^[5] and “common character, likeness” from the 15th century^[2] or 1560.^[10]

Timeline

• 1375 – a body of people (Barbour).^[3]
• c. 1400 – common ownership; a group with common interests.^[5]
• 1426 – the inhabitants of a district.^[10]
• 1560 – likeness, common character.^[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A group of people living in one place under the same government, or the place itself.
2. A group of people with common interests: the scientific community.
3. Likeness or identity: community of interests.
4. Sharing and fellowship.
5. Society as a whole; the public.
6. (ecology) A group of plants and animals living together in one area.

Word family

• communital
• communitarian
• intercommunity
• subcommunity
• community chest
• community college
• community property
• community service

Related words

• common
• commonalty
• communal
• commune
• communication
• communism
• communist

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)