citizenship
Americannoun
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the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.
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the character of an individual viewed as a member of society; behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen.
an award for good citizenship.
noun
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the condition or status of a citizen, with its rights and duties
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a person's conduct as a citizen
an award for good citizenship
Etymology
Origin of citizenship
Explanation
Citizenship is the status of being a citizen. If you have citizenship in a country, you have the right to live there, work, vote, and pay taxes! Citizenship comes from the Latin word for city, because in the earlier days of human governments, people identified themselves as belonging to cities more than countries. Citizenship is more than merely living somewhere. If you have citizenship, you have a whole set of rights that non-citizens might not have. Usually you have citizenship in the country you're born in, but if you're an immigrant from somewhere else, you have to apply for it.
Vocabulary lists containing citizenship
Michelle Obama's Speech at the 2016 DNC
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Citizenship (Civics) - Middle School
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Ancient Greece, Lessons 1–3
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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.
In a video shared online on 4 April, Townsend featured alongside Ben Stimson and Aiden Minnis - who were given Russian citizenship for fighting in the occupied Donbas region.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Company president Carolyn Carlson told AFP: "The voter file records provided and delivered by Data-Clear did not contain an individual voter's citizenship status."
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
I want to revive and kind of expand on that because we now have the real-life example of the birthright citizenship case.
From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2026
The administration had hoped to persuade states to check their voters’ citizenship status using a system called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, but many didn’t.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
In late 1967, the US government, taking into consideration all her services during the war, finally grants her something much more permanent than residency: citizenship.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
