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Commons   /kˈɑmənz/   Listen
noun
Commons  n. pl.  
1.
The mass of the people, as distinguished from the titled classes or nobility; the commonalty; the common people. (Eng.) "'T is like the commons, rude unpolished hinds, Could send such message to their sovereign." "The word commons in its present ordinary signification comprises all the people who are under the rank of peers."
2.
The House of Commons, or lower house of the British Parliament, consisting of representatives elected by the qualified voters of counties, boroughs, and universities. "It is agreed that the Commons were no part of the great council till some ages after the Conquest."
3.
Provisions; food; fare, as that provided at a common table in colleges and universities. "Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant."
4.
A club or association for boarding at a common table, as in a college, the members sharing the expenses equally; as, to board in commons.
5.
A common; public pasture ground. "To shake his ears, and graze in commons."
Doctors' Commons, a place near St. Paul's Churchyard in London where the doctors of civil law used to common together, and where were the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts and offices having jurisdiction of marriage licenses, divorces, registration of wills, etc.
To be on short commons, to have a small allowance of food. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Commons" Quotes from Famous Books



... O ye swains,—'tis a tale most profane, How all the tyrannical powers, Kings, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain, To cut down this guardian of ours. From the East to the West, blow the trumpet to arms, Through the land let the sound of it flee, Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer, In defense of ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... conclusion of an argument by Edmund Burke in which the speaker maintained that Warren Hastings should be impeached by the House of Commons. If it had been preceded by a clear "introduction" and convincing "proof," do you think that it would have made an ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon

... and when the heather-bells are coming out they all return, and each fairy takes possession of a bell and lives there. She makes it her home. And the brownies—they live under the leaves of the heather, and attend to the fairies, and dance with them at night just over the vast heather commons. Then, by a magical kind of movement, each little fairy sets her own heather-bell ringing, and you can't by any possibility imagine what the music is like. It is so sweet—oh, it is so sweet that no music one has ever heard, made ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... the Second-Reading of the Home Rule Bill passing through the English House of Commons, ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... Campeache, etc., and the government one of the most considerable next to Peru and Mexico.... So that Spain has as well too much right as advantage not to assert the propriety of these woods, for though not all inhabited, these people may as justly pretend to make use of our rivers, mountains and commons, as we can to enjoy any benefit to those woods." So much for the strict justice of the matter. But when the ambassador came to give his own opinion on the trade, he advised that if the English confined themselves to cutting ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring


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