community means A group sharing common characteristics, such as the same language, law, religion, or tradition.
community is pronounced /kəˈmjuː.nɪ.ti/.
Why “community” is a great word
A group of people or other organisms living together in a specific area or sharing common characteristics, interests, or identity. From Late Middle English communite, borrowed from Old French communité, from Classical Latin commūnitās ("community, public spirit"), from commūnis ("common, public") + -itās (noun-forming suffix). Unlike "society" (which suggests a larger, more complex, and structured system of people and institutions) or "collective" (which emphasizes a group united for specific action or economic purpose), community implies a more localized or specific group with broader social, geographical, or cultural bonds. It is the neighbor who brings soup when you are sick, the shared silence of strangers watching a street musician, the particular way a place smells after rain when you have walked it a thousand times—the recognition that we are not merely aggregated, but knitted together by something we cannot quite name, and cannot survive without.
Etymology
From Late Middle English communite, borrowed from Old French communité, comunité, comunete (modern French communauté), from Classical Latin commūnitās (“community; public spirit”), from commūn(is) (“common, ordinary; of or for the community, public”) + -itās. By surface analysis, commun(e) + -ity. Displaced native Old English ġemǣnsċipe. Doublet of communitas.
noun
- A group sharing common characteristics, such as the same language, law, religion, or tradition.
- A residential or religious collective; a commune.
- A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.
- A group of people interacting by electronic means for educational, professional, social, or other purposes; a virtual community.
- The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.
- A feeling of togetherness or connectedness, common identity or of possessing a similar outlook, perspective and purpose with some group of people.e.g.“Volunteering gave me a sense of community.”
- Common enjoyment or possession; participation.e.g.“a community of goods”
- Common character; likeness.
- Commonness; frequency.
- A local area within a county or county borough which is the lowest tier of local government, usually represented by a community council or town council, which is generally equivalent to a civil parish in England.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.