community

noun

1. (countable)A group sharing common characteristics, such as the same language, law, religion, or tradition.

   “[W]e are not borne to our ſelues alone, but the prince, the countrie, the parents, freends, wiues, children and familie, euerie of them doo claime an intereſt in vs, and to euerie of them we muſt be beneficiall: otherwiſe we doo degenerate from that communitie and ſocietie, which by ſuch offices by vs is to be conſtrued, & doo become moſt vnprofitable: […]”

   “Nor wanting here, to entertain the thought, / Creatures, that in communities exist, / Less, at might seem, for general guardianship / Or through dependance upon mutual aid, / Than by participation of delight / And a strict love of fellowship, combined.”

   “As one reads history—not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time—one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”

   “The process of coming to faith and growing in the life of faith is fundamentally a process of participation. […] The Presbyterian Confession of 1967 says that "the new life takes shape in a community in which [human beings] know that God loves and accepts them in spite of what they are." In words that capture an older language, God uses the community of faith as "means of grace."”

2. (countable)A residential or religious collective; a commune.

   “The Beguines, an uncloistered religiously inspired woman's movement began about the year 1210 in Liége, Belgium. Generally the Beguines lived in community or in small cottages behind a wall. At times threatened as heretics, they were finally disbanded by the Reformation.”

3. (countable)A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

   “Synecology has for the objects of its study, not individual organisms but biological communities, which are groups of organisms living in a given space, the properties of which space select a certain assemblage of organisms of definite autecological characteristics. Such communities are moreover not merely collections of organisms of restricted autecology, but tend to become organized by the biotic relationships that exist beteen the various individuals comprising the community.”

4. (Internet, countable)A group of people interacting by electronic means for educational, professional, social, or other purposes; a virtual community.

   “Spam texts are encoded but no decryption is possible. There is no plaintext message. I find them wonderful, and read them as poetics, as odd fragments generative of narrtives and scenography. I find the process of their production wonderful as well. The texts are written to elude community standards and means of censorship, and at the same time to enter and impose themselves into the standards and means for the community to read itself.”

   “Online gaming communities develop their own language, history, routines, and relationships. The online poker community is no different, developing its own culture distinct from the traditional poker community. One asp[ect that differentiates internet poker from other online gaming communities is the presence of money, creating what [Edward] Castronova et al. (2009) refer to as a virtual economic system complete with its own rules and forces.”

   “Purpose doesn’t only come from work. The third way we can create a sense of purpose for everyone is by building community. And when our generation says “everyone”, we mean everyone in the world.”

5. (uncountable)The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.

   “We hope to demonstrate that Paul understood the local community to be the sphere in which and the means through which the five components of the maturation process were facilitated, thus concluding that Paul expected believers to be confirmed to Christ in community.”

   “Writing groups and community writing spaces can provide that vitally important space for writing as well as potential benefits of support and accountability if people have the chance to talk about writing. Even if all that happens, however, is that people have a space to write in community with each other, the result is usually that writing becomes contagious.”

6. (countable, obsolete)Common enjoyment or possession; participation.

   “a community of goods”

   “To conclude, this Text is ſo far from proving Adam Sole Proprietor, that on the contrary, it is a Confirmation of the Original Community of all Things amongſt the Sons of Men, which appearing from this Donation of God, as well as other places of Scripture; the Sovraignty of Adam, built upon his Private Dominion, muſt fall, not having any Foundation to ſupport it.”

   “Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that can keep hearts together—an unreserved community of thought and feeling.”

7. (obsolete, uncountable)Common character; likeness.

   “The essential community of nature between organic growth and inorganic growth, is, however, most clearly seen on observing that they both result in the same way. The segregation of different kinds of detritus from each other, as well as from the water carrying them, and their aggregation into distinct strata, is but an instance of a universl tendency towards the union of like units and the parting of unlike units[…].”

8. (obsolete, uncountable)Commonness; frequency.

   “So when he had occaſion to be ſeene, / He was but as the Cuckoe is in Iune, / Heard, not regarded: Seene, but with ſuch eie / As ſicke and blunted with communitie, / Affoord no extraordinary gaze.”

9. (Wales, countable)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.