commonweal en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Southern-England) audio
- /ˌkɒmənˈwiːl/
Etymology
From Middle English comun wele, commen wele, comune wele, equivalent to common (“public”) + weal (“well-being”). By the 1520s used by some authors as the equivalent of res publica (republic), alongside commonwealth from about the same time.
Meanings
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(archaic) The common good; public wellbeing or prosperity.
It’s easy to imagine that the tools they developed for settling disputes about Star Wars won’t be up to the challenge of saving some informational commonweal, but then again, what does modern politics resemble more than a vicious fandom at war with itself?
2018 August 7, Alexis C. Madrigal, “Wikipedia, the Last Bastion of Shared Reality”, in The Atlantic:He [David Gelernter] yearns for the days when people, for reasons of the commonweal, did what they were told.
1995 May 21, Steven Levy, “The Unabomber and David Gelernter”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:He had to judge the people as justice Errant […]; to equip his milites, send them duly in war-time to the King; — strive every way that the Commonweal, in his quarter of it, take no damage.
1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. XIII, In Parliament”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):
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The body politic; republic.
[…] hit semeth that men haue ben longe abused in calling Rempublica a commune weale. And they which do suppose it so to be called for that, that euery thinge shulde be to all men in commune without discrepance of any astate or condition, be ther to moued more by sensualite, than by any good reason or inclination to humanite. […] And consequently there may appere lyke deuersitie to be englisshe, betwene a publike weale & a commune weale, as shulde be in latin betwene Res publica and Res plebeia.
1531, Thomas Elyot, chapter I, in The Boke Named the Governour […], London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti, →OCLC:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| commonweals | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| common weal | alternative | lexicographic |