citizenry means the group of all citizens; citizens taken collectively. It carries an Arena rating of 1378, earned across 10 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, citizenry ranks #1,379 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,030 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #4,839 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words, #5,274 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
Why “citizenry” is a great word
The collective body of individuals recognized as full, formal members of a political state, possessing specific rights and responsibilities under its laws. From citizen (from Anglo-French citesein, 'city-dweller') + the collective noun-forming suffix -ry. It displaced the Old English term burgwaru. First recorded in English 1810–20. Unlike 'populace,' which denotes all inhabitants irrespective of legal standing, or 'residents,' which stresses mere habitation, the citizenry is defined by a shared covenant of belonging. It is the hum of a polling station on a rainy day, the rustle of a thousand jury summons, and the weight of a passport in a breast pocket—not just a population, but a people constituted by mutual obligation and a common horizon.
Etymology
From citizen + -ry. Displaced native Old English burgwaru.
noun
- The group of all citizens; citizens taken collectively.e.g.“It's one of the main selling points of the prison business: that they keep the sexually non-conformist or "deviant" out of sight of the respectable citizenry, especially to "protect" the children.” — 1983 December 10, Mike Riegle, “Sexual Politics of "Crime": Inside and Out”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 21, page 5:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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