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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.
  2. n. The district or locality in which such a group lives.
  3. n. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
  4. n. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.
  5. n. Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
  6. n. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.
  7. n. Society as a whole; the public.
  8. n. Ecology A group of plants and animals living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions.
  9. n. Ecology The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Common possession or enjoyment; the holding or sharing of interests, possessions, or privileges in common by two or more individuals: as, a community of goods; community of interests between husband and wife.
  2. n. Life in association with others; the social state.
  3. n. A number of people associated together by the fact of residence in the same locality, or of subjection to the same local laws and regulations; a village, township, or municipality.
  4. n. A society or association of persons having common interests or privileges, commercial, social, political, or ecclesiastical, and subject to the same regulations; now, especially, a society of this nature in which the members reside together or in the same locality: as, the Oneida Community (see below).
  5. n. The body of people in a state or commonwealth; the public, or people in general: used in this sense always with the definite article.
  6. n. Commonness; frequency.
  7. n. In logic, the being possessed in common by several subjects.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, tradition and law. (see civilization).
  2. n. Commune or residential/religious collective.
  3. n. The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.
  4. n. A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.
  5. n. A group of people interacting by electronic means for social, professional, educational or other purposes. (see virtual_community).

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Common possession or enjoyment; participation.
  2. n. A body of people having common rights, privileges, or interests, or living in the same place under the same laws and regulations. Hence a number of animals living in a common home or with some apparent association of interests.
  3. n. Society at large; a commonwealth or state; a body politic; the public, or people in general.
  4. n. Common character; likeness.
  5. n. Commonness; frequency.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a group of people living in a particular local area
  2. n. a group of nations having common interests
  3. n. (ecology) a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other
  4. n. a district where people live; occupied primarily by private residences
  5. n. common ownership
  6. n. agreement as to goals

Etymologies

  1. Middle English communite, citizenry, from Old French, from Latin commūnitās, fellowship, from commūnis, common; see common.

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘community’.

Comments

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  • tchaymore @chained_bear Great quote! Judge Learned Hand, aside from having one of the best names ever, has some great quotes. Feb 25, 2012

  • ruzuzu Takchess, when you go to one of your favorite lists, there should be an option at the top which says "love." Click on that to "favorite" the list. If that isn't available or doesn't work, we can go to the feedback thingee and ask there. Feb 21, 2012

  • takchess Question for the Management or the Community at Large....
    I know I can add a word as a favorite; can I or will I later be able to add a fellow member's list as a favorite? If so, how ?

    Feb 21, 2012

  • chained_bear 'Judge Learned Hand, one of Simon Flexner's closest friends, later observed, "That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, becomes a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent."'
    —John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 125
    Feb 13, 2009

  • reesetee I agree, yarb. Check out uselessness' A Collectivist Utopia list (if you haven't already). :-) Jan 8, 2008

  • yarb I've never liked this word. Everyone seems to want to put me in some community or other. Politicians, marketers. It's really an emasculated word in my opinion. Jan 8, 2008

  • planspark "A community is a group of people who form relationships over time by interacting regularly around shared experiences, which are of interest to all of them for varying individual reasons." -- Jake McGee, 2005/02/28 (Source) Jan 8, 2008

  • grantneufeld Certainly much misused and maligned in corporate and technology circles, ‘community’ remains an extremely critical word in work for constructive social change.

    The destruction of meaningful community in “western�? societies is a key component of the social and environmental problems in the world today. The dissociation that is enmeshed in virtually all aspects of the “modern�? industrial/post-industrial society is at the root of our social ailments—which we cannot truly hope to overcome without finding ways to bring people together to form viable, ongoing and sustainable interconnections. Feb 22, 2007

  • shii God I hate this word. Feb 12, 2007

  • bkerr I just spent 30 minutes in a meeting where participants (unsuccessfully) tried to decide what they meant by "community." Dec 15, 2006

‘community’ has been looked up 2757 times, loved by 1 person, added to 45 lists, commented on 10 times, and has a Scrabble score of 18.