community

American  

[kuh-myoo-ni-tee] / kəˈmju nɪ ti /

noun

communities plural

1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

2. a locality inhabited by such a group.

3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists: the community of scholars;

   the business community;

   the community of scholars;

   diversity within a college community;

   London's Jewish and Muslim communities.

4. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage.

   the community of Western Europe.

5. Ecclesiastical. a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule.

6. Ecology. an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area.

7. joint possession, enjoyment, liability, etc..

   community of property.

8. similarity; agreement; identity.

   community of interests.

   Synonyms:

   likeness, correspondence

9. the community, the public; society.

   the needs of the community.

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community British  

/ kəˈmjuːnɪtɪ /

noun

1. 1. the people living in one locality

   2. the locality in which they live

   3. ( as modifier )

      community spirit

2. a group of people having cultural, religious, ethnic, or other characteristics in common

   the Protestant community

3. a group of nations having certain interests in common

4. the public in general; society

5. common ownership or participation

6. similarity or agreement

   community of interests

7. (in Wales since 1974 and Scotland since 1975) the smallest unit of local government; a subdivision of a district

8. ecology a group of interdependent plants and animals inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other through food and other relationships

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community Scientific  

/ kə-myo̅o̅′nĭ-tē /

1. A group of organisms or populations living and interacting with one another in a particular environment. The organisms in a community affect each other's abundance, distribution, and evolutionary adaptation. Depending on how broadly one views the interaction between organisms, a community can be small and local, as in a pond or tree, or regional or global, as in a biome.

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Usage

What is a community? A community is a social group whose members have something in common, such as a shared government, geographic location, culture, or heritage. Community can also refer to the physical location where such a group lives. It can refer to a town, city, village, or other area with a formal government whose residents share a nationality or culture, as in A group of town citizens decided to clean up the litter in their community. Community can also refer to the people who live in this area, as in Filipe was able to raise money for the city’s homeless shelter with help from the community. More generally, community can refer to a group that shares some trait or quality that separates it from the wider population as in Tracy was excited to find that the Muslim community in her city often held free talks on being a Muslim American. Example: Ria entered politics to help improve the lives of the people in her community. 

Synonym Usage

Community, hamlet, village, town, city are terms for groups of people living in somewhat close association, and usually under common rules. Community is a general term, and town is often loosely applied. A commonly accepted set of connotations envisages hamlet as a small group, village as a somewhat larger one, town still larger, and city as very large. Size is, however, not the true basis of differentiation, but properly sets off only hamlet. Incorporation, or the absence of it, and the type of government determine the classification of the others.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• communital
  adjective
• procommunity
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• communities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of community

First recorded in 1325–75; from Latin commūnitās, equivalent to commūni(s) “common” + -tās noun suffix; replacing Middle English comunete, from Middle French, from Latin as above; see common, -ty ²;

Explanation

If a number of people consider themselves one group based on location, work, religion, nationality, or even activity, they can be called a community. If you like to play online games, you are active in the gamer community. The original meaning of Latin communitatem "a sense of fellowship" shifted to mean "a specific group of people with a common interest" during the Middle Ages. The modern English word community has both of these meanings available. Street festivals or school fairs can help to develop a sense of community in schools or neighborhoods. If you start a campaign to clean up the community, you want to make the area you live in more attractive.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

community communities

Last month, Bass issued orders mandating Lineage remove all food waste within 45 days and mobilizing resources to assist the community.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

We spent a week around al-Mughayyir, and its neighbouring village, Khirbet Abu Falah, to see what life was like here for a single community, or a single family.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

A former community organizer, he used youthful slang and pop culture references with the same ease he played pick-up basketball games.

From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026

“The role of the intelligence community is to provide information, not to engage in policy,” he told the intelligence panel.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

There is no way to repair the harm to the community, no way any of the people on this worksheet will ever forgive me.

From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz

Our analysis looked at the 38 U.S. cities with more than 500,000 people, so I interviewed families across the country to learn about what was happening in their communities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Smith praised local communities for supporting firefighters, farmers and other volunteers.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

CIELO, a nonprofit organization that works with Indigenous communities in Los Angeles, found that post-pandemic, one of the biggest challenges facing Indigenous migrant communities in Los Angeles is food insecurity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

However, they could also offer opportunities to collect additional water if communities improve forecasting and expand storage systems.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

There were many in the international law enforcement and intelligence communities who were convinced Le Fantôme was not a real person.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

Related Words

• association
• center
• company
• district
• nation
• neighborhood
• people
• public
• society
• state