society
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /səˈsaɪ.ə.ti/
Forms: form: societies
form: soc.
Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French societé, from Old French societé, from Latin societās, societātem (“fellowship, association, alliance, union, community”), from socius (“associated, allied; partner, companion, ally”), from Proto-Indo-European *sokʷ-yo- (“companion”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow”). First attested in the 1530s.
Senses: examples: text: This society has been known for centuries for its colorful clothing and tight-knit family structure.
text: He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.
ref: 2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 162:
glosses: A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms.
examples: text: It was then that they decided to found a society of didgeridoo-playing unicyclists.
text: At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.[…]In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
ref: 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
text: The Stephenson Locomotive Society (North Western Area) and the Manchester Locomotive Society are co-operating in running a special corridor train, to be worked by an 0-6-0 locomotive of the former Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, on Saturday, May 12, over a route which includes visits to four historic stations, ascent of the 1 in 27 Werneth Incline, and traversal of lines normally closed to passenger traffic.
ref: 1956 April, “Notes and News: Rail Tour of "Old Manchester"”, in Railway Magazine, page 273:
glosses: A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization.
examples: text: The gap between Western and Eastern societies seems to be narrowing.
text: Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.
ref: 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
glosses: The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals.
examples: text: Our global society develops in fits and starts.
text: If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the ever more expensive and then universally known killing hazards of gasoline cars:[…].
ref: 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
text: Libertarian paternalism is the view that, because the way options are presented to citizens affects what they choose, society should present options in a way that “nudges” our intuitive selves to make choices that are more consistent with what our more deliberative selves would have chosen if they were in control.
ref: 2012 January 24, Steven Sloman, “The Battle Between Intuition and Deliberation”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 74:
glosses: The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole.
examples: text: Smith was first introduced into society at the Duchess of Grand Fenwick's annual rose garden party.
text: "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society."
ref: 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice:
glosses: High society.
topics: law
glosses: A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.
Hyponyms: bible society
building society
café society
civic society
civil society
high society
learned society
mutual admiration society
polite society
Royal Society
secret society
Derived terms: acclimatisation society
altar society
antisociety
benefit society
big society
black society
bonfire society
book society
burial society
cafe society
classification society
collecting society
collection society
consociety
consumer society
cybersociety
e-society
extra-society
fission-fusion society
friendly society
historical society
honor society
house society
humane society
information society
infosociety
intersociety
ladies' aid society
landed society
learning society
megasociety
microsociety
multisociety
mutual society
nonsociety
pay one's debt to society
pillar of society
risk society
societal
society column
society columnist
society function
society garlic
society house
societyless
society pages
society verse
societywide
soldiers' aid society
stakeholder society
subsociety
supersociety
technosociety
tract society
undersociety
we live in a society