Forms: 4–5 comunete, comynetee, -unite, -unyte, -unnete, comminite, 6 communytee, 6–7 -itie, 6– community. [a. OF. com(m)uneté, com(m)unité:—L. commūnitāt-em, f. commūn-is COMMON. ME. had two forms, the trisyllabic comunete, comounté (see COMMONTY), and the 4-syllabic co(m)munité, which remained in closer formal connection with the original Latin type. The L. word was merely a noun of quality from commūnis, meaning ‘fellowship, community of relations or feelings’; but in med.L. it was, like universitas, used concretely in the sense of ‘a body of fellows or fellow-townsmen,’ ‘universitas incolarum urbis vel oppidi,’ and this was its earlier use in English: see II.]
I. As a quality or state.
1. The quality of appertaining to or being held by all in common; joint or common ownership, tenure, liability, etc.; as in community of goods.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. viii. (1634), 51. By community of power, he is the author of them.
1586. A. Day, Eng. Secretary, I. (1625), 123. The community of the mischiefe to all.
1624–47. Bp. Hall, Rem. Wks. (1660), 161. One allows plurality, or community of Wives.
1645. Ussher, Body Div. (1647), 285. Anabaptists, that hold community of goods.
1673. Lady’s Calling, Pref. 1. To rescue the whole sex … from the community of the blame.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. iii. (1865), 257. I have a community of feeling with my countrymen about [Shakspere’s] Plays.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 314. It was a community of studies and a community of skill.
1875. Bryce, Holy Rom. Emp., xxi. (ed. 5), 392. A state whose strength lies in the community of interests and feelings among its members.
† b. Right of common. Obs.
1630. R. Johnson, Kingd. & Commw., 79. Every Neighbour claimeth communitie to feed his Cattell.
2. Common character; quality in common; commonness, agreement, identity. † Nothing of community: nothing in common.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, ii. 18. Men, who ought euen naturally to be vnited, by the communitie of their kind.
1624. Wotton, Archit., in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 21. I will first consider their Communities and then their Proprieties. Their Communities are Principally three. First they are all Round, [etc.].
1671. Grew, Idea Philos. Hist. Plants, § 47. The Communities and Differences of the Contents of Vegetables.
1843. Wordsw., Pref. Note to Excursion, Wks. 409/2. The points of community in their nature.
1876. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma, 154. The community of character which pervades them all.
1878. Morley, Carlyle, 165. Community of method, like misery, makes men acquainted with strange bed-fellows.
3. Social intercourse; fellowship, communion.
1570. T. Norton, trans. Nowel’s Catech. (1853), 196. While God reigneth by his Spirit in us, men have a certain community with God in this world.
c. 1610. Women Saints, 182. There is no reason or law, that they should have any communitie or fellowship with vs.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., xvii. 63. Such gross … Corruptions in a Church would force the most serious Believers to forsake the Community thereof.
1818. Mrs. Shelley, Frankenst., ix. (1865), 130. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies.
4. Life in association with others; society, the social state.
1652. Shirley, Brothers, IV. i. Confined To cells, and unfrequented woods, they knew not The fierce vexation of community.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 522, ¶ 1. [Marriage] is the foundation of community, and the chief band of society.
1880. Hyde Clarke, in Nature, 203. The dog, either in community (commonly called wild) or in the domesticated state.
† 5. Commonness, ordinary occurrence. Obs.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. ii. 77. Seene but with such Eyes, As sicke and blunted with Communitie, Affoord no extraordinarie Gaze, Such as is bent on Sunne-like Maiestie.
1604. Drayton, Owle, 155. Happie’s that sight the secret’st things can spye, By seeming purblind to Communitie.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 340. The community of this fruit [the apple].
† b. Common character, vulgarity. Obs.
1605. Bloudy Bk., B iij. Under this title of honor … to maske his deedes of vice … and with the very sounde of Knight to boulster out the community of his ryots.
II. A body of individuals.
† 6. The body of those having common or equal rights or rank, as distinguished from the privileged classes; the body of commons; the commonalty.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, XX. 128*. And all the lordis at thar war And als of the Comminite Maid hym manrent and fewte.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 148. A gode comynate makes hom have gode heddis.
1572. Lament. Lady Scotl., in Sc. Poems 16th C., II. 247. Barrouns and nobilitie That dois oppres my pure communitie.
1700. Tyrrell, Hist. Eng., II. 983. The Commons or Community also chose Twelve Persons to represent them.
7. A body of people organized into a political, municipal, or social unity: a. A state or commonwealth.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 342. Þer is oon emperour and oon hede in a comunnete.
1474. Caxton, Chesse, 91. To prynces and them that gouerne the thynges of the comunete.
1578. T. N., trans. Conq. W. India, 115. Certifying likewise that those with whome hee had foughte were of other communities.
1689. Burnet, Tracts, I. 68. The other Communities of this League bought their Liberties from several Bishops.
1769. Robertson, Chas. V., I. I. 66. Europe was broken into many separate communities.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), II. 27. It is probable the number of independent communities is still more considerable.
b. A body of men living in the same locality.
a. 1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., VII. xxii. § 7. No mortal man, or community of men, hath right of propriety in them.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 49, ¶ 3. Those little Communities which we express by the word Neighbourhoods.
1774. J. Bryant, Mythol., I. 63. Number of sacred hearths; each of which constituted a community or parish.
1873. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 407. During the Norman period London appears to have been a collection of small communities, manors, parishes, church-sokens, and guilds, held and governed in the usual way.
1884. Gladstone, in Standard, 29 Feb., 2/4. Many of the towns which, under the name of towns, are represented in this House, are really rural communities.
c. Often applied to those members of a civil community, who have certain circumstances of nativity, religion, or pursuit, common to them, but not shared by those among whom they live; as the British or Chinese community in a foreign city, the mercantile community everywhere, the Roman Catholic community in a Protestant city, etc., the Jewish community in London, familiarly known to its members as ‘The Community.’
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. vi. 50. The literary world is an immense community.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, The ‘Times’, Wks. (Bohn), II. 117. Exposing frauds which threatened the commercial community.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. iii. 77. The Dutch community of the reformed religion in London subscribed 9005 florins.
1888. Amy Levy, Reuben Sachs, i. 2. He had gained many desirable friends and had, to some extent, shaken off the provincialism inevitable to one born and bred in the Jewish community. Ibid., v. 48. That rapidly dwindling section of the Community which attaches importance to the observation of the Mosaic and Rabbinical laws in various minute points. Ibid., vi. 69. The Community had come back in a body from country and seaside, in time for the impending religious festivals.
d. The community: the people of a country (or district) as a whole; the general body to which all alike belong, the public.
1789. Bentham, Princ. Legisl., xviii. § 2. The good of the community cannot require that any act should be made an offence which is not liable in some way or other to be detrimental to the community.
1814. Scott, Wav., xxxii. Mercy to a criminal may be gross injustice to the community.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Hill & Valley, ii. 26. Such men become a burden to the community.
8. spec. A body of persons living together, and practising, more or less, community of goods.
a. A religious society, a monastic body.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Communities are of two kinds, ecclesiastic and laic: the first are either secular, as chapters of cathedral and collegiate churches, etc.
1820. Scott, Monast., i. A more inexpiable crime in the eyes of the Abbot and Community of Saint Mary’s.
1850. Mrs. Jameson, Leg. Monast. Ord. (1863), 119. To introduce some order into his community.
1879. Baring-Gould, Germany, II. 152. It was impossible for the Ursulines to accept conditions which would have broken up their community life.
b. A socialistic or communistic society, such as those founded by Owen.
1844. Emerson, Lect., New Eng. Ref., Wks. (Bohn), I. 264. Following, or advancing beyond the ideas of St. Simon, of Fourier, and of Owen, three communities have already been formed in Massachusetts.
1874. R. D. Owen, Threading my Way, 255. New Harmony therefore is not now a community.
1890. Spect., 27 Sept. The Mormon community … is a community,—a successful attempt, that is, to organise industry on a grand scale.
9. transf. and fig. a. of gregarious animals.
1746–7. Hervey, Medit. (1818), 168. This frugal community are wisely employed in … collecting a copious stock of the most balmy treasures.
1814. Wordsw., Excurs., IV. 446. Creatures that in communities exist … The gilded summer flies.
† b. of things: A cluster, a combination. Obs.
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terapeutyke, 2 C j b. The communytees of vlceres that last longe tyme that are vncurable. [Cf. Galen, Therap., IV. iv. αἱ κοινότητες αἱ τῶν χρονίων ἑλκῶν.]
† 10. A common prostitute. Obs.
1606. Sir G. Goosecappe, I. iv., in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 26. One of these painted communities, that are ravisht with Coaches and upper hands.
