Com|mune

com|mune¹ «verb. kuh MYOON; noun. KOM yoon», verb, -muned, -mun|ing, noun.

–v.i.

to talk intimately: »

Feasting with the great, communing with the literary (Washington Irving).

–n.

an intimate talk; communion.

╂[< Old French communer < comun; see etym. der common (Cf. ↑common)]

com|mune² «KOM yoon», noun.

1. a) the smallest division for local government in France, Belgium, Italy, and several other European countries. b) the people or government of a commune.

2. a community or the people comprising it.

3. a) a place where a group of people live together communally: »

[He] ... operates a commune, an apartment where anyone can stay for a night, a week, or as long as he likes (New York Times). An abandoned lumber town has been turned into a little commune by a bunch of hippies (Punch).

b) a group of people living together.

4. (formerly) a unit of local government in Communist China, comprising a group of collective farms organized to carry out planned communal work, including industrial, administrative, and educational projects.

5. (formerly in Russia) the mir.

╂[< Middle French commune, alteration of Old French commugne < Vulgar Latin commūnia, neuter plural of Latin commūnis; see etym. under common (Cf. ↑common)]

com|mune³ «kuh MYOON», intransitive verb, -muned, -mun|ing.

to receive Holy Communion.

╂[< Old French communier < Late Latin commūnicāre; see etym. under communicate (Cf. ↑communicate)]

Com|mune «KOM yoon», noun. the,

1. a revolutionary group that governed Paris from 1792 to 1794.

2. a similar group that governed Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871.