Village

sb. Forms: 4– village, 5 vylage, villach-, 5–6 vyllage, 5–7 vilage, 6 wylage, Sc. willage, -aige, welage; also pl. 6 vyllagies, Sc. willagies. [a. OF. village, vilage (mod.F. village), = Pr. vilatge, Sp. village, Pg. villagem (fem.), It. villaggio:—L. villāticum, neut. sing. of villāticus of or pertaining to a villa, f. villa VILLA: see -AGE. Cf. late L. villagium, vilatgium.]

  1.  A collection of dwelling-houses and other buildings, forming a center of habitation in a country district; an inhabited place larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, or having a simpler organization and administration than the latter. (Cf. the note to TOWN sb. 4.)

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Pard. T., 225. Henne ouer a myle, withinne a greet village.

a. 1400.  Sqr. lowe Degre, 491. He had not ryden but a whyle,… Or he was ware of a vyllage.

1422.  Yonge, trans. Secreta Secret., 184. A Candrede in frensh and in Irysh, is a Porcion of grovnde that may contene an hundrid villachis.

1477.  Rolls of Parlt., VI. 184/1. In any Toune or other village not corporat.

c. 1515.  Cocke Lorell’s B. 14. They sayled England thorowe and thorowe, Vyllage, towne, cyte, and borowe.

1573.  Tusser, Husb. (1878), 85. Much carting, ill tillage, makes som to flie village.

1600.  Shaks., A. Y. L., III. iii. 60. A wall’d Towne is more worthier then a village.

1600.  J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, VII. 287. A large and ample village containing to the number of sixe thousand or mo families.

1617.  Moryson, Itin., I. 51. I remember not to haue seene a more pleasant village than this [the Hague].

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 448. Forth issuing on a Summers Morn to breathe Among the pleasant Villages and Farmes,… The smell of Grain.

1725.  Watts, Logic, II. iii. § 4. Consider also, that … the Customs of different Towns and Villages in the same Nation, are … contrary to each other.

1770.  Goldsm., Des. Village, 1.

1806.  Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), Wallacetown; a thriving and populous village in Ayrshire…. The village nearly joins to the Newtown of Ayr, and contains about 960 inhabitants.

1860.  Mill, Repr. Govt. (1865), 115/1. A mere village has no claim to a municipal representation.

1882.  T. Coan, Life in Hawaii, 43–4. When the meeting closed at one village, most of the people ran on to the next, and thus my congregation increased rapidly from hour to hour.

  transf.  1604.  E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, II. vi. 94. There are whole villages of these Vros inhabiting in the Lake in their boates of Totora, the which are tied together and fastened to some rocke.

  phr.  1770.  Gentl. Mag., XL. 559. To express the Condition of an Honest Fellow and no Flincher, under the Effects of good Fellowship, he is said to … Come home by the Villages, this is Provincial, when a man comes home by the fields he meets nobody, consequently is sober, when he comes home by the Villages, he calls first at one house, then at another, and drinks at all.

  b.  Applied jocularly to a large town or city, esp. London.

1825.  C. M. Westmacott, Engl. Spy, I. 129. I used to keep a good prad here for a bolt to the village.

a. 1860[?].  Du Maurier, in Moscheles, In Bohemia (1897), 124. Living with Henley, No. 85, Newman Street…. This is a very jolly little village, and I wish you were over here.

1860.  Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxviii. You had much better come up to the little village at once, Brown, and stay there while the coin lasts.

1874.  Slang Dict., 334. Birmingham is called ‘the hardware village.’

  c.  Cambr. slang. (See quot.)

1865.  Slang Dict., 266. A Cambridge term for a disreputable suburb of that town, viz., Barnwell, generally styled ‘the village.’

  d.  U.S. A minor municipality with limited corporate powers (see quots.).

1888.  Bryce, Amer. Commw., II. II. xlviii. 240. A minimum population of three hundred, occupying not more than two square miles in extent, may by popular vote become incorporated as a ‘village.’ Ibid., 247. Of these villages and other minor municipalities there are various forms in different States. Ohio, for instance, divides her municipal corporations into (a) cities,… (b) villages, with two classes, the first of from 3000 to 5000 inhabitants, the second of from 200 to 3000,… and (c) hamlets.

  2.  The inhabitants or residents of a village; the villagers.

a. 1529.  Skelton, Agst. Garnesche, iv. 25. The corte, the contre, wylage, and towne, Sayth … Of all prowde knauys thow beryst the belle.

1770.  Goldsm., Des. Vill., 207.

1820.  Combe, Syntax, Consol., I. (Chandos), 138. The Village on their Pastor gaz’d, At once afflicted and amaz’d.

1864.  Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 35. A sleepy land,… Where almost all the village had one name.

  3.  transf. (from 1). A small group or cluster of the burrows of prairie-dogs. Cf. TOWN sb. 7 b.

1808.  Pike, Sources Mississ., II. (1810), 156, note. The Wishtonwish of the Indians, prairie dogs of some travellers,… reside on the prairies of Louisiana in towns and villages.

1814.  Brackenridge, Jrnl., in Views Louisiana, 239. I happened on a village of barking squirrels, or prairie dogs.

1822.  Samuel Giddings, Jrnl., 14 June, in Vermont Gaz., 15 April (1823), 3/1. We passed a village of barking squirrels, or prairie dogs…. Thousands dwell in the same village, forming a little community.

1835.  W. Irving, Tour Prairies, xxxii. 295. I learned that a burrow, or village, as it is termed, of prairie dogs had been discovered.

  4.  attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib. passing into adj., = of or pertaining to, characteristic of, a village or villages; living in or belonging to a village; rural, rustic.

  Freq. in poetry from the early 18th c.

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., III. xiii. 95. The Voinuchz or Græcian village men.

1594.  Shaks., Rich. III., V. iii. 209. The early Village Cock Hath twice done salutation to the Morne.

1608.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 160. Of the Village dog or house-keeper.

1613.  Shaks., Hen. VIII., II. iv. 159. Enemies, that know not Why they are so; but like to Village Curres, Barke when their fellowes doe.

1634.  Milton, Comus, 346. Might we but hear … Or sound of pastoral reed…, or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery Dames.

1697.  Dryden, Ded. Æneis, Ess. (ed. Ker), II. 233. Those village words, as I may call them, give us a mean idea of the thing.

1703.  Rowe, Fair Penit., II. i. Faithful as the simple Village Swain.

1770.  Goldsm., Des. Vill., 327.

1779.  Mirror, No. 42, ¶ 4. The village-surgeon being then absent.

1783.  Crabbe, Village, II. 2. No longer truth … disdain, But own the Village Life a life of pain.

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, V. xxv. But village notes could ne’er supply That rich and varied melody.

1837.  Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., III. 91. Much might be said of village manners in America.

1860.  in F. Galton, Vac. Tour. (1861), 114. The literati of the southern Slaves are not to be found among a higher class than the village clergy, and masters of village-schools.

1871.  Maine (title), Village-Communities in the East and West.

1883.  Smiles, in Longm. Mag., June, 159. He was followed to the grave by a large number of the village labourers.

  † b.  Attrib., = village-like; of the size or constitution of a village. Obs.^–1

1642.  Jer. Taylor, Episc. (1647), 89. In populous Cityes, not in village Townes, for no Bishops were ever suffered to be in village Townes.

  c.  In objective and obj. genitive, instrumental, locative or other combs., as village-founder, -haunter; village-born, -bred, -dwelling, -lit adjs.

1649.  G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., ccxcix. These … wrought more With village-haunters.

1852.  Badger, Nestorians, I. 343. The Jès were all Igrâwy, that is village-dwelling Arabs, who cultivate the soil.

1860.  Glasgow Herald, 15 May, 2/2. The uncleanness and foul air make these dens the nuclei of disease, and in such places the country or village-bred youth cannot hope long to escape.

1872.  Howells, Wedd. Journ. (1892), 270. The landscape of village-lit plain and forest-darkened height.

1880.  Cornh. Mag., Jan., 35. The local hero or eponymous village-founder was the man who cut down the jungle.

1891.  Daily News, 11 Sept., 3/4. The many village-born men in towns.

  d.  Special combs.: village burrow, = sense 3; village butler Cant (see quot.); village-house, the chief house of a Malay village.

1795.  Potter, Dict. Cant (ed. 2), Village butlers, old thieves, that would rather steal a dishclout than discontinue the practice of thieving.

1862.  S. St. John, Life Forests Far East, I. 7. A passage raised on posts three feet above the ground, led to the great village-house.

1893.  W. H. Hudson, Idle Days in Patagonia, i. 11. Like … the vizcacha’s village burrows, and the beaver’s dam, it is made to last for ever.

  Hence Village v. intr., to settle down to a villeggiatura. Villagedom, the condition or status of a village; also, the system of village communities. Villageful, as many as a village contains; the whole of the people of a village. Villagehood, = villagedom. Villageless a., having no village. Villageous a., of or concerned with villages or village-life. † Villageship, ? a village community. Villageward(s advs., in the direction of the village. Villagism, a mode of expression usual in villages; a rustic phrase.

1819.  Byron, Lett. to Hoppner, 6 June. I shall go back to Venice before I *village on the Brenta.

1867.  McDowall, Hist. Dumfries, xiii. 144. William I. raised it [Dumfries] from humble *villagedom to be one of the King’s own burghs.

1881.  F. T. Palgrave, Visions Eng., 4. O’er the land is wrought The happy villagedom by English tribes From Elbe and Baltic brought.

1855.  Daily News, 19 Dec., 4/4. The beneficent Princess who created a village not far from St. Petersburg, to which she brought a *villageful of good neighbours…. The fathers died prematurely of grief for their separation from their household graves.

c. 1890.  Stevenson, In South Seas, IV. (1900), 312. A villageful of gay companions.

1897.  Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 401. They come down in villagefuls among the older tribes.

1847.  Morning Express (Buffalo, NY), 24 Dec., 2/2. Steele, who has borne a conspicuous part in each returning Christmas and New Year Festival since our city merged from *village-hood, is as ready now as ever to supply the public with gifts.

1890.  Murray’s Mag., May, 662. Caudebec is only redeemed from pure villagehood by its possession of a Mayor.

1889.  Hissey, Tour in Phaeton, 169. An old and lonely country church, standing by itself, *villageless, on rising ground.

1858.  Thoreau, Lett. (1865), 171. Let it be a local and *villageous book.

1762.  trans. Busching’s Syst. Geog., IV. 72. The town contains some corporations of villages or *villageships.

1883.  Harper’s Mag., Sept., 493/2. We strolled villageward.

1884.  May Crommelin, Brown-Eyes, xix. Then the two groups … went back villagewards.

1772.  Nugent, Hist. Fr. Gerund, VI. 169. To say, ‘Command me, in every thing,’ they would think a vulgarity and *villagism.