commonweal means the common good; public wellbeing or prosperity. It carries an Arena rating of 1754, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, commonweal ranks #1,231 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,286 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,775 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,790 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words.
commonweal is pronounced /ˌkɒmənˈwiːl/.
Why “commonweal” is a great word
The general welfare and shared good of a community as a whole. From Middle English *comun wele*, a compound of “common” (public) and “weal” (well-being). Unlike “commonwealth,” which denotes a concrete political state, or “private interest,” which pursues individual advantage, the commonweal is the abstract ideal of collective benefit. It is the well-maintained town square, the quality of the shared water, and the tacit agreement to teach each other’s children well—the fragile, often invisible fabric of mutual benefit that makes a society more than the sum of its competing parts.
Etymology
From Middle English comun wele, commen wele, comune wele, equivalent to common (“public”) + weal (“well-being”). By the 1520s used by some authors as the equivalent of res publica (republic), alongside commonwealth from about the same time.
noun
- The common good; public wellbeing or prosperity.e.g.“He had to judge the people as justice Errant […]; to equip his milites, send them duly in war-time to the King; — strive every way that the Commonweal, in his quarter of it, take no damage.” — 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XIII, In Parliament”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):
- The body politic; republic.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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