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• village
  village

  noun

  a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality.
• Village
  Village

  noun

  The, a city in central Oklahoma.

village

¹ American  

[vil-ij] / ˈvɪl ɪdʒ /

noun

• villages
  plural

1. a small community or group of houses in a rural area, larger than a hamlet and usually smaller than a town, and sometimes (as in parts of the U.S.) incorporated as a municipality.

2. the inhabitants of such a community collectively.

3. a group of animal dwellings resembling a village.

   a gopher village.

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of a village.

   village life.

Village ² American  

[vil-ij] / ˈvɪl ɪdʒ /

noun

1. The, a city in central Oklahoma.

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village British  

/ ˈvɪlɪdʒ /

noun

1. a small group of houses in a country area, larger than a hamlet

2. the inhabitants of such a community collectively

3. an incorporated municipality smaller than a town in various parts of the US and Canada

4. a group of habitats of certain animals

5. a self-contained city area having its own shops, etc

6. (modifier) of, relating to, or characteristic of a village

   a village green

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Synonym Usage

See community.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• intervillage
  adjective
• village-like
  adjective
• villageless
  adjective
• villagey
  adjective
• villagy
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• villages
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of village

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin villāticum, neuter of villāticus villatic

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Explanation

A village is a place where people live that's smaller than a city or town. The village where your grandparents live might have a population of only a few hundred people. In the US, some towns, townships, and cities have smaller villages communities within them. There are also villages that are independent of any larger areas. In either case, a village is typically larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town. The majority of Indians live in villages, while in other countries (like Russia and the UK) population has moved to big cities and suburbs, away from traditional villages. The Latin source of village is villa, or "farm."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

village Village villages

The village formed a youth group in 2011 to manage what they call the "tabu area", and the group leads the effort to plant corals and encourage a healthy ecosystem.

From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026

The protected area Kunagado and his friends have cultivated is bursting with corals and is now home to hundreds of heat-resistant "super corals" that may protect the village from the impacts of rising sea temperatures.

From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026

In Karpivka, a village occupied since April, the Ukrainians found one local resident remaining - 61 year old Volodymyr Zamota, the last man standing when his neighbours fled the Russian advance in 2025.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026

A light breeze rustled in the trees as Stupnikov walked to the outskirts of the village, carrying his military radio and his smartphone.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

At the end of the celebration, the town unveiled a boulder of Vermont granite on the village green with a bronze plaque as a permanent memorial to Phineas.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman

It had been decades since sharks last patrolled the reef off the coast of Fiji's Naidiri Village, but they returned this year following a community-led effort to protect the fishery and plant thousands of corals.

From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026

Moody jewel tones and rich finishes throughout the residence make it feel like a world of its own, but it’s conveniently located at the “meeting point” of Greenwich Village, the West Village, and SoHo.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026

Supermodel and reality star Brooks Nader is most at home in the West Village.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026

A maximalist salon collides with a backstage circus dressing room in the Silver Lake apartment of stylist Wendi Weger, whose delightful fusion of art and fashion is behind the Curatorial Dept. in Atwater Village.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Our team moved out of the Olympic Village a couple of days later and checked into the Grand Hyatt hotel.

From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles

Of the area's 180 villages, some 67 are predominantly Baiga and among the most vulnerable.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

"From today, you will have to watch over your villages," Gombagui told around 100 local officials gathered in the village of Tibeita on a recent morning, urging them to "denounce" the prospectors and their accomplices.

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026

Bamita's death was one of at least 32 child deaths recorded since May in a cluster of remote villages in Balaghat district in India's Madhya Pradesh state, officials say.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

People in nearby villages said U.S. servicemen hadn’t been seen for the past week, leading the locals to presume the men were being kept on base for security reasons.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

“No,” said he, “not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses—and smithies—and that. Waiter!”

From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens

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