Commune, Communal, and Community | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharonvillinesprodigy.net) | |
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 17:03:02 -0600 (MDT) |
>From the OED: Definitions of commune and communal refer back to Common so I started with Common. I deleted heaps of examples and obsolete meanings otherwise this would block everyone's mail boxes. I deleted as many of the html commands as I could but may have also messed up some of the Latin references as well. This is from the CD ROM version. Examples for Common begin in the 1200s and are mostly indecipherable. Examples for Commune and Communal are much later. A word is not just its literal definition but also its associations -- the subtext. As you will see communal has many associations that would make most of us uncomfortable -- politically as well as socially. Cohousing is designed in common and some land is held in common, but most uses of the words commune or communal infer a much more intimate or controlling environment. "In Common" is as far as most cohousers (I think) would be comfortable with. ***COMMON. noun,1 1. The common body of the people of any place; the community or commonalty; spec. the body of free burgesses of a free town or burgh; sometimes, the commonwealth or state, as a collective entity. Obs. 2. The common people, as distinguished from those of rank or dignity; the commonalty. Often viewed politically as an estate of the realm, = the commons, q.v. Obs. 5. a. A common land or estate; the undivided land belonging to the members of a local community as a whole. Hence, often, the patch of unenclosed or waste land which remains to represent that. --1855 Singleton Virgil I. Pref. 6 There is a common of language to which both poetry and prose have the freest access. 6. Law. (Also right of common, common right.) The profit which a man has in the land or waters of another; as that of pasturing cattle (common of pasture), of fishing (common of piscary), of digging turf (common of turbary), and of cutting wood for fire or repairs (common of estovers); = commonage, commonty. 12. quasi-n. the common. a. That which is common or ordinary. Esp. in above, beyond, out of the common. --1742 H. Walpole Lett. Mann, Beyond the common. --1762 71 Vertue's Anecd. Paint. IV. 161 A man above the common. d. In joint use or possession; to be held or enjoyed equally by a number of persons. e. Law. tenants in common: such as hold by several and distinct titles, but by unity of possession. So tenancy, estate, etc., in common. f. In general, as a general conception or universal. Obs. g. In union, in communion, in a community. h. Said of participation in attributes, characteristics, actions, etc. Esp. in phr. to have in (formerly of) common (with). --1705 Arbuthnot Coins (J.), In a work of this nature it is impossible to avoid puerilities, it having that in common with dictionaries, and books of antiquities. ***COMMON, a. Forms: co(m)mun, comune, commune, co(m)muyn, co(m)men, -in, (4 -ynge), co(m)mown(e, -oun(e, -yn, comyne, comone, commone, comon, common. .....in the 13th c., the popular form had become comun, whence comyn, comin, comen, and the modern pronunciation. Chaucer and Gower have both; comun(e being usual at the end of a line.] A. adj. I. Of general, public, or non-private nature. 1. a. Belonging equally to more than one (J.); possessed or shared alike by both or all (the persons or things in question). to have (anything) common with: now, to have in common with. --1832 H. Martineau Life in Wilds ix. 111 The contents being common property. b. Belonging to all mankind alike; pertaining to the human race as a possession or attribute. -- 1581 J. Bell Haddons Answ. Osor. 140 Not to enjoy ye common ayre. c. General, indiscriminate. Obs. --1463 Bury Wills (1850) 17, I will no comown dole haue, but..eche pore man and eche pore wouman beyng there haue j d. to prey for me. 2. Belonging to more than one as a result or sign of co-operation, joint action, or agreement; joint, united. to make common cause (with): to unite one's interests with those of another, to league together. --1682 Dryden Relig. Laici Pref., Wks. (Globe) 185 The weapons..are to be employed for the common cause against the enemies of piety. --1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) I. v. 349 The habit of common action was still new. 5. a. Of or belonging to the community at large, or to a community or corporation; public. common crier, public or town crier. common clerk, town clerk. b. In various phrases which translate or represent L. res publica, as common good, profit, thing, utility: see commonweal, commonwealth. c. common right: the right of every citizen. 6. a. Free to be used by every one, public. b. common woman: a harlot; so common prostitute. c. In various semi-legal or statutory designations, as common alehouse, common brewer, common carrier, etc., the original meaning appears to be existing for the use of the public as opposed to private, recognized by the law as bound to serve the public; though other senses have become associated with this. common lodgings or lodging-house, a lodging-house in which beds may be obtained for the night. 7. That is matter of public talk or knowledge, generally known. common bruit, fame, etc.: popular rumour or report. --to make common: to make public, to publish. --1568 Grafton Chron. II. 304 As the common report went. 8. Said of criminals, offenders, and offences; as common barrator, scold, swearer; common nuisance, common gaming house, etc. 9. Generally accessible, affable, familiar. Obs. but perhaps entering into the sense in such a phrase as to make oneself too common, which has, however, various associations with senses 10. a. In general use; of frequent occurrence; usual, ordinary, prevalent, frequent. 11. a. Having ordinary qualities; undistinguished by special or superior characteristics; pertaining to or characteristic of ordinary persons, life, language, etc.; ordinary. b. Such as is expected in ordinary cases; of no special quality; mere, bare, simple, at least. c. Secular; lay; not sacred or holy. 12. a. Of persons: Undistinguished by rank or position; belonging to the commonalty; of low degree; esp. in phr. the common people, the masses, populace. (Sometimes contemptuous.) a link between the nobility and the common people. b. common soldier: an ordinary member of the army, without rank or distinction of any kind. 14. In depreciatory use: a. Of merely ordinary or inferior quality, of little value, mean; not rare or costly. b. Of persons and their qualities: Low-class, vulgar, unrefined. ***COMMUNE, n.1 [a. F. commune (It. and med.L. communa, Pr. comuna, comunia): late L. communia, neut. pl. of communis common, treated as n. fem. (cf. bible).] (For commun(e as early form of common, see common.) 1. Hist. As a rendering of med.L. communa, communia, F. commune, It. comuna in various historical and technical uses: a. the body of commons, the commonalty; b. a municipal corporation; c. a community; spec. = community 8 b. --1818 Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) III. 33 In the memorable assertion of legislative right by the commons in the second of Henry V...they affirm that the commune of the land is, and ever has been, a member of parliament. --1837 Sir F. Palgrave Merch. & Friar iii. (1844) 75 The lower or lowest sort of the people, calling themselves the Communia. --1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (ed. 3) I. iv. 257 The peasantry of Normandy..made a commune. --1876 Green Short Hist. ii. 89 Nor were the citizens as yet united together in a commune or corporation. --1967 Time 7 July 18/2 The hippie philosophy also borrows heavily from Henry David Thoreau, particularly in the West Coast rural communes, where denizens try to live the Waldenesque good life on the bare essentials. --1969 Guardian 23 Sept. 5/1 The London Street Commune..is concentrating on a two-pronged attack against straight society. --1969 Times 5 Dec. 7/1 A few of the more ardent ones [sc. hippies] eke out an isolated existence in desolate communes on the edges of the desert. 2. a. In France, a territorial division governed by a maire and municipal council; it is the smallest division for general administrative purposes, and is as a rule a section of a canton; towns and cities (except Paris) however form only one. b. Applied to similar administrative divisions in other countries; also to translate Ger. Gemeinde; also, a name for a division in the socialistic organization of St. Simon. --1841 W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. III. 113 For the election of deputies from the provinces, the council of every commune proposes two candidates. --1861 Vac. Tour 110 A commune in Servia is composed of two or three neighbouring villages; or a single village, if sufficiently large, may be of itself a commune. c. the Commune (of Paris): (a) a name assumed by a body which usurped the municipal government of Paris, and in this capacity played a leading part during the Reign of Terror, till suppressed in 1794; (b) the government on communalistic principles established in Paris by an insurrection for a short time in the spring of 1871; (c) the revolutionary principles and practices embodied in the latter, and advocated by its adherents, the communards. d. A communal division or settlement in a Communist country. --1919 tr. Lenin's State & Revol. 50 For the mercenary and corrupt parliamentarism of capitalist society, the Commune substitutes institutions in which freedom of opinion and discussion does not become a mere delusion. --1929 Social Sci. Abstr. 2284 The Bolshevist leaders..policy manifested itself in the creation of so-called autonomous republic labor communes. --1930 Economist 29 Mar. 693/1 The withdrawal of peasants from a number of hastily organised and completely unstable communes of collective farms. --1958 Listener 25 Dec. 1066/2 Mr. Dulles..had alleged that the communes [in China] represented a backward system of mass slavery. --1964 Listener 30 Jan. 177/1 Co-operatives [in China] were amalgamated into larger units, the communes. ***COMMUNE, noun, 2 The action of communing; converse, communion. --1814 Southey Roderick 11, This everlasting commune with myself. --1885 Black White Heather xxiv, Hills that stood in awful commune with the stars. commune, v. Forms: 4<min>6 comune, 5 comewne, 3<min> commune. I. Obsolete senses: in which common was the more usual form.1. To make common to others with oneself, impart (to), share (with) 2. To communicate verbally, tell, publish, report 3. intr. To take a part in common, to share, participate 4. To have common dealings or intercourse; to associate with 5. To bring into agreement Obs. rare. II. Current senses, now always commune. 6. intr. a. To talk together, converse. b. To confer, consult (with a view to decision). c. Const. of, upon, on (the matter discussed). --1611 Bible Luke xxii. 4 He went his way, and communed with the chiefe Priests and captaines, how he might betray him vnto them. e. trans. To talk over together, confer about, discuss, debate 7. To hold intimate (chiefly mental or spiritual) intercourse (with). (Now only literary, devotional and poetic.) --1824 W. Irving T. Trav. I. 213 Feasting with the great, communing with the literary. --1842 Tennyson Two Voices 461 To commune with that barren voice. ***COMMUNAL, adjective. 1. a. Of or belonging to a commune (senses 1 and 2). --1811 W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. XXXII. 62 Communal nurseries were every where established. --1873 Dixon Two Queens i. i, In every part of Aragon, the cities had their..communal laws. b. Of or pertaining to the Paris Commune and its adherents. 2. a. Of or pertaining to a (or the) community. --1843 Barmby in New Age 1 Sept. 86 So also do I declare that Baptism should become, as a religious rite, permanent, communal, and diurnal. --1888 A. Levy Reuben Sachs x. 131 It consolidates one's position..to stand well with the [Jewish] Community..But..you will find a good many meetings of all sorts, which are not communal. b. spec. communal kitchen, a public kitchen under official management; communal land(s), land held by a community; also attrib., as communal-land system, tenure. 3. Of or pertaining to the commonalty or body of citizens of a burgh. 1875 Stubbs Const. Hist. III. xxi. 809 The communal or popular faction was not however crushed. Thus ended one phase of the communal quarrel. Sharon -- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org _______________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org Unsubscribe and other info: http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l
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