# common

Pronunciation: US say "KAH-muhn" /ˈkɑ.mən/; UK say "KO-muhn" /ˈkɒm.ən/

## Adjective

1. Occurring often or found in large numbers; usual rather than rare.
   - Simple: Happening often or found in many places. Not rare.
   - _Power outages are common during hurricane season._
   - _Headaches are a common side effect of the new medication._
2. Shared by or belonging to two or more people, groups, or things, or to everyone.
   - Simple: Shared by two or more people or things, or by everyone.
   - _The roommates split the cost of cleaning the common areas._
   - _The two rivals finally found common ground on trade policy._
3. Ordinary, plain, or undistinguished; often disparaging, suggesting vulgarity or a lack of refinement.
   - Simple: Ordinary and plain, and sometimes an unkind word for rude or low-class.
   - _The inn served common fare: bread, cheese, and thin soup._
   - _She thought dyed hair looked common and said so loudly._
4. Designating the vernacular, everyday name of a plant or animal, as distinct from its scientific name.
   - Simple: Used for the everyday name of a plant or animal, not its scientific name.
   - _The species' common name varies from region to region, but its Latin name does not._
   - _Gardeners usually know plants by their common names rather than their botanical ones._
5. Appearing as part of the everyday name of a species, usually indicating that it is abundant or widely familiar.
   - Simple: Used in the name of a plant or animal to show it is the usual, well-known kind.
   - _The common starling has spread across much of North America._
   - _Birdwatchers logged dozens of common loons on the lake that morning._
6. Arising from longstanding usage, custom, or judicial precedent rather than from statutes enacted by a legislature.
   - Simple: Coming from custom and old court decisions, not from written laws passed by lawmakers.
   - _Negligence doctrine developed through common law, case by case, over centuries._
   - _Judges in common law systems are bound by earlier decisions._
8. Designating nouns that refer to any member of a class of things, as opposed to proper nouns, which name specific individuals.
   - Simple: Describing a noun that names a general kind of thing, like 'city', not one special name, like 'Paris'.
   - _In English, common nouns are capitalized only at the start of a sentence._
   - _She marked 'teacher' as common and 'Einstein' as proper on the worksheet._

## Noun

7. A tract of land owned or used jointly by the people of a community; common land.
   - Simple: An open piece of land that everyone in a town or village can use.
   - _A band plays free concerts on the town common every summer._
   - _Villagers once gathered firewood on the common under ancient rights of use._

## Adjective

9. Profane or ritually unclean; not consecrated or set apart as holy. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Not holy, and not clean enough to be used in worship.
10. Given to lewd or promiscuous habits; engaged in prostitution. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Behaving in a sexually shameful way, or selling sex for money.

## Verb

11. To communicate something to another person; to impart or make it known. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To tell or share something with another person.
12. To converse or talk, especially with another person or together. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To talk together with another person about something.
13. To participate; to take part in something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To take part in something with other people.
14. To board together; to take one's meals at a shared table. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To eat meals together at one shared table.
15. To have sexual intercourse with someone. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To have sex with another person.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A mutual good; a benefit shared by more than one person.
- (noun) The people of a community considered collectively; the community as a whole.
- (noun) A right to take some profit, such as pasture, wood, or fish, from land belonging to another, shared with the landowner or with other persons entitled to the same right.
- (adjective) Belonging to the grammatical gender that, in languages such as Swedish, Danish, and Dutch, merged the historical masculine and feminine classes and contrasts with neuter.
- (verb) To hold, together with others, the right to use common land, as for grazing animals.

## Origin

This word comes from Middle English comun, borrowed through Anglo-Norman and Old French comun, from Latin commūnis ("common, public, general"). The Latin word traces back to Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "held in common" and "to exchange." It is a doublet of mean and eventually displaced the native Old English ġemǣne.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/common (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).