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Colony vs Commune - What's the difference?

colony | commune |

As nouns the difference between colony and commune

is that colony is a settlement of emigrants who move to a new place, but remain culturally tied to their original place of origin while commune is a small community, often rural, whose members share in the ownership of property, and in the division of labour; the members of such a community.

As a verb commune is

to converse together with sympathy and confidence; to interchange sentiments or feelings; to take counsel.

colony

English

Noun

(colonies)
  • A settlement of emigrants who move to a new place, but remain culturally tied to their original place of origin
  • Region or governmental unit created by another country and generally ruled by another country.
  • * Bermuda is a crown colony of Great Britain .
  • A group of people with the same interests or ethnic origin concentrated in a particular geographic area
  • * The in Iowa were settled by people from Germany
  • A group of organisms of same or different species living together in close association.
  • * ant colony
  • * The Portuguese Man O' War (Physalia physalis), also known as the bluebubble, bluebottle or the man-of-war, is commonly thought of as a jellyfish but is actually a siphonophore — a colony of specialized polyps and medusoids. Wikipedia article on (w, Portuguese Man o' War)
  • A collective noun for rabbits.
  • Derived terms

    * colonial (adj., n.) * colonialism (n.) * colonise, colonize * colonist (n.) * colonyhood (n.) * Cologne (city, n.) * penal colony * space colony

    commune

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) commune, in turn deriving from Latin.

    Noun

    (wikipedia commune) (en noun)
  • A small community, often rural, whose members share in the ownership of property, and in the division of labour; the members of such a community.
  • A local political division in many European countries.
  • (obsolete) The commonalty; the common people.
  • (Chaucer)
  • (obsolete) communion; sympathetic intercourse or conversation between friends
  • * Tennyson
  • For days of happy commune dead.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

    (commun)
  • To converse together with sympathy and confidence; to interchange sentiments or feelings; to take counsel.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I would commune with you of such things / That want no ear but yours.
  • To communicate (with) spiritually; to be together (with); to contemplate or absorb.
  • He spent a week in the backcountry, communing with nature.
  • To receive the communion.
  • * Bishop Burnet
  • To commune under both kinds.
    English heteronyms ----