Forms: 4 com(m)unalite, -ee, 4–7 -ie, 6– commonality. [A by-form of COMMONALTY, conformed (in its earlier spelling) to the L. *commūnālitās.]

1

  † 1.  A community, commonwealth; = COMMONALTY 1. Obs.

2

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Boeth., I. iv. 13. Þe gouernours of communalities. Ibid., IV. vi. 142. God … for he hym self is good … chaseþ oute al yuel of þe boundes of hys communalite.

3

  † b.  A free or self-governing community; = COMMONALTY 1 b. Obs.

4

1680.  Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 393. Some … have their Kings, others live by Hords or Commonalities.

5

  2.  Common people; = COMMONALTY 3.

6

  (The form favored by Scottish writers.)

7

1582.  Addr. Jas. VI., in Sir J. Melvil’s Mem. (1735), 258. Noblemen, Barons, Burgesses and Commonality.

8

1628.  Hobbes, Thucyd. (1822), 153. The commonality are now your friends.

9

1650.  Jer. Taylor, Holy Living (1727), 158. The tears and the curse of the commonality.

10

1761–2.  Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lxiv. 725. Three estates, the clergy, the nobility, and the commonality.

11

1864.  Burton, Scot Abr., I. i. 18. All the commonality of Scotland.

12

1879.  Geo. Eliot, Theo. Such, ii. 37. Among the mixed commonality.

13

  † 3.  A corporation; = COMMONALTY 2. Obs.

14

1687.  Lond. Gaz., No. 2288/1. The humble Address of the … Mystery and Commonality of Barbers and Surgeons.

15

  † 4.  Possession in common, community. Obs.

16

1540.  Hyrde, trans. Vives’ Instr. Chr. Wom. (1592), X iij. The women could not awaye with that comminalitie of goods.

17

  † 5.  = COMMONALTY 5. Obs.

18

1715.  M. Davies, Ath. Brit., I. Pref. 67. Not possible to be Read by the Commonality of Christians. Ibid., II. 416. The common use and understanding of the Commonality of Christians.

19