civitas
Americannoun
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civitates
plural
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the body of citizens who constitute a state, especially a city-state, commonwealth, or the like.
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citizenship, especially as imparting shared responsibility, a common purpose, and sense of community.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of civitas
From Latin cīvitās; literally, “commmunity of citizens, citizenship,” equivalent to cīvis “citizen, fellow citizen” + -tās -ty 2 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To gain civitas at birth, a person needed to be the child of two citizens.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
In addition to maintaining their frontier with an army, Romans carried on a perpetual debate about citizenship, or civitas, and whether to extend its benefits to different groups.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
Harvey, a self-educated college dropout, talks a lot about William James, agora, public squares and preaching civitas.
From Time Magazine Archive
Bell's book is the year's most promising start on the long road back to civitas.
From Time Magazine Archive
A civitas is necessarily stationary; but a populus may consist of Nomades, or wanderers from one pasture to another.
From Döderlein's Hand-book of Latin Synonymes by Ludwig Döderlein
When the legions departed, the neatly defined "civitates" quickly frayed as rivalries resurfaced.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2014
These, of course, were connected, in degrees more or less close, with the different curtes regiae, and with the placita held in the various civitates commonly about three times in the year.
From The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes. by William Klapp Williams
The Greek and Roman world was made up, in the last analysis, of an aggregation of civitates, or city states.
From A Source Book of Medi?val History Documents Illustrative of European Life and Institutions from the German Invasions to the Renaissance by Frederic Austin Ogg
They still preserved in their municipal institutions the old style of republicas derived from the civitates and respublicae of ancient Rome.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 "Banks" to "Bassoon" by Various
The towns which had fought on the side of the Romans during the Third Punic War were declared civitates liberae, and became exceedingly prosperous.
From The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
