Communities

How to spell communities

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce communities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does communities mean?

1. nounGroups of people living in the same area or united by shared interests, background, or characteristics.

Communities in a sentence

• The charity supports rural communities across three counties.

• Online communities have changed how hobbyists share advice.

Where does communities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin communitas, meaning 'fellowship' or a shared body of people, which was built on communis, 'common' or 'shared by all'. That adjective itself combines com-, meaning 'together', with munus, an old Latin word for a duty, service, or gift; so a community was originally a group bound together by shared obligations. English took the word through Old French comunete in the 1300s, when it first meant the common people or a body of fellows, and the spelling was later tidied back toward the Latin form. The same munus root sits inside 'municipal' and 'remunerate', which is a useful reminder that the tricky middle is spelled mun, not mon. The plural simply adds -es after the y becomes i, a regular pattern that nonetheless trips writers who reach for an apostrophe instead.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• mun (from munus: duty, service, gift)
• -ity (state or quality)
• -es (plural)