# settlement

Pronunciation: say "SET-uhl-muhnt" /ˈsɛ.təl.mənt/

## Noun

1. A community of people living together in one place, ranging from a small hamlet to a large city.
   - Simple: A place where a group of people live together, such as a village or town.
   - _The remote mountain settlement relied on a single supply road through the pass._
   - _Traders founded the settlement at the crossing point of two ancient routes._
2. A mutual agreement to end a dispute without going through legal proceedings; an out-of-court settlement.
   - Simple: An agreement that ends a legal argument without going to court.
   - _After months of negotiation, the parties signed a settlement that avoided a costly trial._
   - _The insurer offered a settlement covering all of the medical expenses._
3. The resolution of a dispute, bringing the disagreement between two parties to a definite end.
   - Simple: The end of an argument when both sides agree on an answer.
   - _The long-running labor dispute finally moved toward a settlement._
   - _A fair settlement left neither side feeling cheated._
4. A newly established colony; a place or region recently settled by people moving into it.
   - Simple: A new place where people have just come to live, often far from home.
   - _The coastal settlement attracted families seeking cheap farmland._
   - _Within a decade the frontier settlement had its own school and church._
5. The completion of a trade in which the seller delivers the goods and the buyer pays for them as agreed.
   - Simple: The point when a buyer pays and a seller hands over the goods.
   - _Settlement of the contract took place once both invoice and shipment were confirmed._
   - _The brokerage handles settlement for thousands of trades each day._
6. The act of settling something, bringing it into a fixed, decided, or final state.
   - Simple: The act of making something final or putting it to rest.
   - _Settlement of the account closed the dispute for good._
   - _The settlement of so many questions in one meeting came as a relief._
7. The condition of being settled, whether calm, fixed, or firmly established in place.
   - Simple: The state of being calm, fixed, and no longer changing.
   - _A sense of settlement returned once the family unpacked the last box._
   - _By morning the silt in the jar had reached full settlement, leaving clear water above it._
8. An ancient site where people once lived together; a simple, early kind of village.
   - Simple: An old place where people lived together long ago, found by diggers today.
   - _Excavators uncovered a Bronze Age settlement beneath the hillside._
   - _The lakeside settlement yielded pottery and animal bones._
9. The gradual sinking of a building into the ground, together with the cracks and dislocations that the sinking causes.
   - Simple: The slow sinking of a building into the ground over time.
   - _Uneven settlement left a long crack running across the ceiling._
   - _Engineers monitored the tower for any sign of settlement._
10. A legal disposition of property to one or more people, or the act of granting it.
   - Simple: A legal arrangement that gives property to someone, or the act of giving it.
   - _The marriage settlement transferred the estate to the couple's heirs._
   - _Her father arranged a settlement that placed the farm in trust._
11. A settled place of residence, and the legal right that arises from lawfully living in a particular place.
   - Simple: The place where someone legally lives, and the rights that come from living there.
   - _A pauper's settlement decided which parish had to provide relief._
   - _He claimed settlement in the village where he had worked for years._
12. In Anglo-Indian Bengal, an estate or district from which the government collected a fixed sum several times a year, rather than a share of the year's produce, from local cultivators. *(India)*
   - Simple: In old Bengal, a piece of land where the government took a fixed payment instead of part of the crops.
   - _The new settlement fixed the revenue the cultivators owed for years to come._
   - _Officials toured the settlement to collect the agreed payment._

## Origin

Formed from the verb "settle" combined with the suffix "-ment".

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