Citizen

How to spell citizen

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce citizen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does citizen mean?

1. nounA legally recognised member of a country or state, with the rights and responsibilities that membership brings.

Citizen in a sentence

• Every citizen over eighteen is entitled to vote in the election.

• After living abroad for a decade, he became a naturalised citizen last spring.

Where does citizen come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the 1300s from Anglo-Norman French citezein, itself an alteration of Old French citeain, meaning a dweller in a city. The French form grew out of Latin civitas, which named both a city and the body of its people, and that in turn rested on civis, the Latin word for a private member of a community, literally a fellow townsman. The original sense was simply 'someone who lives in a town', and only later did the word broaden to mean a legally recognised member of a state with rights and duties. The unexpected -z- in the middle is the main spelling trap: it almost certainly crept in by analogy with the older word 'denizen', so writers who expect a soft -s- are caught out. The very same civis root also underlies 'civic', 'civil', and 'city' itself, which is a useful reminder that the first syllable really does come from 'city'.

How the word is built

• citi- (from cité: city)
• -zen (resident suffix, paralleling 'denizen')