common
belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common property;common interests.
pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public: a common language or history;a common water-supply system.
widespread; general; universal: common knowledge.
lacking rank, station, distinction, etc.; unexceptional; ordinary: a common soldier;common people;the common man;a common thief.
Dialect. friendly; sociable; unaffected.
Anatomy. forming or formed by two or more parts or branches: the common carotid arteries.
Prosody. (of a syllable) able to be considered as either long or short.
Grammar.
not belonging to an inflectional paradigm; fulfilling different functions that in some languages require different inflected forms: English nouns are in the common case whether used as subject or object.
constituting one of two genders of a language, especially a gender comprising nouns that were formerly masculine or feminine: Swedish nouns are either common or neuter.
noting a word that may refer to either a male or a female: French élève has common gender. English lacks a common gender pronoun in the third person singular.
(of a noun) belonging to the common gender.
Mathematics. bearing a similar relation to two or more entities.
of, relating to, or being common stock: common shares.
Often commons. Chiefly New England. a tract of land owned or used jointly by the residents of a community, usually a central square or park in a city or town.
Law. the right or liberty, in common with other persons, to take profit from the land or waters of another, as by pasturing animals on another's land (common of pasturage ) or fishing in another's waters (common of piscary ).
commons, (used with a singular or plural verb)
the commonalty; the nonruling class.
the body of people not of noble birth or not ennobled, as represented in England by the House of Commons.
Commons, the representatives of this body.
Commons, the House of Commons.
commons,
(used with a singular verb) a large dining room, especially at a university or college.
(usually used with a plural verb)British. food provided in such a dining room.
(usually used with a plural verb) food or provisions for any group.
Sometimes Commons .Ecclesiastical.
an office or form of service used on a festival of a particular kind.
the ordinary of the Mass, especially those parts sung by the choir.
the part of the missal and breviary containing Masses and offices of those saints assigned to them.
Obsolete.
the community or public.
the common people.
Idioms about common
in common, in joint possession or use; shared equally: They have a love of adventure in common.
Origin of common
1synonym study For common
Other words for common
Opposites for common
Other words from common
- com·mon·ness, noun
- o·ver·com·mon, adjective
- o·ver·com·mon·ly, adverb
- o·ver·com·mon·ness, noun
- quasi-common, adjective
- qua·si-com·mon·ly, adverb
Words Nearby common
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use common in a sentence
Students would have a fully equipped laptop to call their own as well as one that didn’t lack key functionalities, which is common among donated devices.
The coronavirus pandemic is expanding California’s digital divide | Walter Thompson | July 9, 2020 | TechCrunchThe company’s financial history is occluded — common with private companies — and a bit uneven.
Coinbase reported to consider late 2020, early 2021 public debut | Alex Wilhelm | July 9, 2020 | TechCrunchResidents often live four to a room, share a bathroom, and congregate in crowded common spaces.
The system can’t be easily reverse-engineered to determine what it learned to pay attention to during training — a common problem for researchers trying to use AI to do science.
Why Is Glass Rigid? Signs of Its Secret Structure Emerge. | John Pavlus | July 7, 2020 | Quanta MagazineAccounts on these platforms were all registered using a handful of common email addresses and phone numbers.
FBI nabs Nigerian business scammer who allegedly cost victims millions | Timothy B. Lee | July 6, 2020 | Ars Technica
The email appears to have been a relatively common attempt to gain personal information from a wide range of unwitting victims.
The vaccine is delivered through a “carrier virus” that causes a common cold in chimpanzees but does not affect humans.
Another read: “We need leaders who will stand against common Core.”
Finding the common bonds that help us realize that we have far more in common than that which separates us.
At the time, screen quotas were far more common among film producing industries.
Propaganda, Protest, and Poisonous Vipers: The Cinema War in Korea | Rich Goldstein | December 30, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe Smooth Naked Horsetail is a common plant, specially by the sides of streams and pools.
How to Know the Ferns | S. Leonard BastinI would ask you to imagine it translated into every language, a common material of understanding throughout all the world.
The Salvaging Of Civilisation | H. G. (Herbert George) WellsOur social life is aimless without it, we are a crowd without a common understanding.
The Salvaging Of Civilisation | H. G. (Herbert George) WellsDiplococci without capsules are common in the sputum, but have no special significance.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis | James Campbell ToddHe had discovered that the all-glorious boast of Spain was not exempt from the infirmities of common men.
The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 of 4 | Jane Porter
British Dictionary definitions for common
/ (ˈkɒmən) /
belonging to or shared by two or more people: common property
belonging to or shared by members of one or more nations or communities; public: a common culture
of ordinary standard; average: common decency
prevailing; widespread: common opinion
widely known or frequently encountered; ordinary: a common brand of soap
widely known and notorious: a common nuisance
derogatory considered by the speaker to be low-class, vulgar, or coarse: a common accent
(prenominal) having no special distinction, rank, or status: the common man
maths
having a specified relationship with a group of numbers or quantities: common denominator
(of a tangent) tangential to two or more circles
prosody (of a syllable) able to be long or short, or (in nonquantitative verse) stressed or unstressed
grammar (in certain languages) denoting or belonging to a gender of nouns, esp one that includes both masculine and feminine referents: Latin sacerdos is common
anatomy
having branches: the common carotid artery
serving more than one function: the common bile duct
Christianity of or relating to the common of the Mass or divine office
common or garden informal ordinary; unexceptional
(sometimes plural) a tract of open public land, esp one now used as a recreation area
law the right to go onto someone else's property and remove natural products, as by pasturing cattle or fishing (esp in the phrase right of common)
Christianity
a form of the proper of the Mass used on festivals that have no special proper of their own
the ordinary of the Mass
archaic the ordinary people; the public, esp those undistinguished by rank or title
in common mutually held or used with another or others
Origin of common
1- See also commons
Derived forms of common
- commonness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with common
In addition to the idioms beginning with common
- common cause
- common ground
- common touch, the
also see:
- in common
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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