# communitas
## English
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin commūnitās. Doublet of community.

### Noun

communitas (countable and uncountable, plural communitates)
* (sociology) An unstructured community of common experience.
** 2012, Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film, →ISBN, pages 17–18:Monastic life, pilgrimage, bonds of friendship formed among the group of young initiates, contemporary teenage counter-culture movements are all good examples of communitates.
* (sociology) The very spirit of community; an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness.
** 1986, Victor W. Turner, The Anthropology of Experience, University of Illinois Press, page 43:A sense of harmony with the universe is made evident and the whole planet is felt to be communitas.
** 1986, Victor W. Turner, Contesting the Sacred, Routledge, published 1991:The achievement of communitas is the pilgrim's fundamental motivation.
** [2004, Kate Fox, “Rules of Sex”, in Watching the English, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 330:Their focus is on group bonding, and the euphoric, almost transcendental experience of becoming one with the music and the crowd (which sounds like a version of what the anthropologist Victor Turner called ‘communitas’—an intense, intimate, liberating kind of group bonding, experienced only in ‘liminal’ states).]
** 2013, Isher-Paul Sahni, “More than Horseplay”, in Studies in Popular Culture, volume 35, page 81:Liminality, in other words, engenders communitas by levelling social distinctions while at the same time destabilizing normative structures and inspiring criticism.

## Latin
### Etymology

From commūnis (“common, public”) +‎ -tās.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /komˈmuː.ni.taːs/, [kɔmˈmuːnɪt̪äːs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /komˈmu.ni.tas/, [komˈmuːnit̪äs]

### Noun

commūnitās f (genitive commūnitātis); third declension
* a community
* public spirit, a sense of duty and willingness to serve one's community

#### Declension

Third-declension noun.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | commūnitās | commūnitātēs |
| Genitive | commūnitātis | commūnitātum |
| Dative | commūnitātī | commūnitātibus |
| Accusative | commūnitātem | commūnitātēs |
| Ablative | commūnitāte | commūnitātibus |
| Vocative | commūnitās | commūnitātēs |

#### Related terms

* commūniō
* commūnis

#### Descendants

* Catalan: comunitat
* English: community, communitas
* French: communauté
* Galician: comunidade
* Italian: comunità
* Occitan: comunitat
* Portuguese: comunidade
* Romanian: comunitate
* Sicilian: cumunità
* Spanish: comunidad

### References

* “communitas”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “communitas”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* communitas in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* communitas in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎, pre-publication website, 2005-2016