Commons

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Commons \Com"mons\, n. pl.,
     1. The mass of the people, as distinguished from the titled
        classes or nobility; the commonalty; the common people.
        [Eng.]
        [1913 Webster]
  


              'T is like the commons, rude unpolished hinds,
              Could send such message to their sovereign. --Shak.
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              The word commons in its present ordinary
              signification comprises all the people who are under
              the rank of peers.                    --Blackstone.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
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              It is agreed that the Commons were no part of the
              great council till some ages after the Conquest.
                                                    --Hume.
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     3. Provisions; food; fare, -- as that provided at a common
        table in colleges and universities.
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              Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing
              scant.                                --Dryden.
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     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.
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     5. A common; public pasture ground.
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              To shake his ears, and graze in commons. --Shak.
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     {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.]
        [1913 Webster] Common sense

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  commons
       n 1: a piece of open land for recreational use in an urban area;
            "they went for a walk in the park" [syn: {park}, {common},
             {green}]
       2: a pasture subject to common use [syn: {common land}]
       3: class composed of persons lacking noble or knightly or
          gentle rank [syn: {commonalty}, {commonality}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  63 Moby Thesaurus words for "commons":
     C ration, K ration, allotment, allowance, board, bourgeoisie,
     cafeteria, common, common people, common run, common sort,
     commonage, commonality, commonalty, commoners, dinette, dining car,
     dining hall, dining room, dining saloon, emergency rations,
     field rations, laborers, linendrapers, lower classes,
     lower middle class, lower orders, lumpen proletariat, meals, mess,
     mess hall, messroom, middle class, middle orders, ordinary people,
     paradise, park, peasantry, plain folks, plain people, pleasance,
     pleasure garden, pleasure ground, proletariat, public park,
     rank and file, rations, refectory, restaurant, salle a manger,
     shopkeepers, short commons, small tradesmen, the lower cut,
     the other half, the third estate, toilers, toiling class, tucker,
     upper middle class, vulgus, working class, working people
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  COMMONS, Eng. law. Those subjects of the English nation who are not 
  noblemen. They are represented in parliament in the house of commons.