Commune, Communal, and Community
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


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