citizen
A2Meanings
-
1
noun
A resident of a city or town, especially one with legally recognized rights or duties.
[T]hat large body of the working men who were not counted as citizens and had not so much as a vote to serve as an anodyne to their stomachs were likely to get impatient.
-
2
noun
A legally recognized member of a state, with associated rights and obligations; a person considered in terms of this role.
I am a Roman citizen.
-
3
noun
An inhabitant or occupant: a member of any place.
Diogenes reckoned himself a citizen of the world.
-
4
noun
An ordinary person, as opposed to nobles and landed gentry on one side and peasants, craftsmen, and laborers on the other.
[W]ould Mr. Delvile, who hardly ever spoke but to the high-born, without seeming to think his dignity somewhat injured, deign to receive for a daughter in law the child of a citizen and tradesman?
-
5
noun
A term of address among supporters of the French Revolution in France or elsewhere; (later, dated) a term of address among socialists and communists.
Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort.
-
6
noun
A notional inhabitant of a software system; an object or a software application.
The HIG delivers Apple's design commandments, the company's definition of what it means to be a good iPhone citizen.
-
7
noun
a native or naturalized member of a state or other political community
-
8
noun
A resident of the heavenly city or (later) of the kingdom of God: a Christian; a good Christian.
Etymology
From Middle English citeseyn, citezein, borrowed from Anglo-Norman citesain (“burgher; city-dweller”), citezein, etc., probably a variant of cithein under influence of deinzein (“denizen”), from Anglo-Norman and Old French citeain, etc. and citaien, citeien, etc. ("burgher"; modern French citoyen), from cité ("settlement; cathedral city, city"; modern French cité) + -ain or -ien (“-an, -ian”). See city and hewe. Displaced native Old English burgwaras (plural form).
View etymology graph →