society

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The totality of social relationships among humans.
2. n. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.
3. n. The institutions and culture of a distinct self-perpetuating group.
4. n. An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest: a folklore society; a society of bird watchers.
5. n. The rich, privileged, and fashionable social class.
6. n. The socially dominant members of a community.
7. n. Companionship; company: enjoys the society of friends and family members.
8. n. Biology A colony or community of organisms, usually of the same species: an insect society.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Fellowship; companionship; company: as, to enjoy the society of the learned; to avoid the society of the vicious.
2. n. Participation; sympathy.
3. n. Those persons collectively who are united by the common bond of neighborhood and intercourse, and who recognize one another as associates, friends, and acquaintances.
4. n. An entire civilized community, or a body of some or all such communities collectively, with its or their body of common interests and aims: with especial reference to the state of civilization, thought, usage, etc., at any period or in any land or region.
5. n. Specifically The more cultivated part of any community in its social and intellectual relations, interests, and influences; in a narrow sense, those, collectively, who are recognized as taking the lead in fashionable life; those persons of wealth and position who profess to act in accordance with a more or less artificial and exclusive code of etiquette; fashionable people in general: as, he is not received into society. In this sense frequently used adjectively: as, society people; society gossip; a society journal.
6. n. An organized association of persons united for the promotion of some common purpose or object, whether religious, benevolent, literary, scientific, political, convivial, or other; an association for pleasure, profit, or usefulness; a social union; a partnership; a club: as, the Society of Friends; the Society of the Cincinnati; a sewing society; a friendly society.
7. n. Specifically In ecclesiastical law, in some of the United States, the corporation or secular body organized pursuant to law with power to sue and be sued, and to hold and administer all the temporalities of a religious society or church, as distinguished from the body of communicants or members united bya confession of faith. When so used in this specific sense, members of the society are those who are entitled under the law to vote for trustees—usually adults who have been stated attendants for one year and have contributed to the support of the organization according to Its usages, while members of the church are those who have entered into a religious covenant with one another. To a considerable extent both bodies are the same persons acting in diiferent capacities. Under the law in some jurisdictions, and in some denominations in all jurisdictions, there is no such distinction.
8. n. Synonyms Corporation, fraternity, brotherhood.
9. n. 6 and
10. n. Union, league, lodge.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms.
2. n. countable A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization.
3. n. countable The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals.
4. n. uncountable The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole.
5. n. uncountable High society.
6. n. countable, law A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The relationship of men to one another when associated in any way; companionship; fellowship; company.
2. n. rare Connection; participation; partnership.
3. n. A number of persons associated for any temporary or permanent object; an association for mutual or joint usefulness, pleasure, or profit; a social union; a partnership.
4. n. The persons, collectively considered, who live in any region or at any period; any community of individuals who are united together by a common bond of nearness or intercourse; those who recognize each other as associates, friends, and acquaintances.
5. n. Specifically, the more cultivated portion of any community in its social relations and influences; those who mutually give receive formal entertainments.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the fashionable elite
2. n. the state of being with someone
3. n. a formal association of people with similar interests
4. n. an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization