Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Communal |
CommunalAdjective1. For or by a group rather than individuals; "dipping each his bread into a communal dish of stew"- Paul Roche; "a communal settlement in which all earnings and food were shared"; "a group effort". 2. Relating to a small administrative district or community; "communal elections in several European countries". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "communal" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references) |
Etymology: Communal \Com"mu*nal\, adjective. [Compare to the French expression communal.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonym: CommunalSynonym: group(a) (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Communal |
| English words defined with "communal": beat generation, beatniks, beats, bee ♦ cenobitic, cenobitical, cloistered, cloistral, coenobitic, coenobitical, communalism, conventual ♦ group ♦ mixer, monastic, monastical ♦ pool, Pueblo ♦ refectory ♦ shaker, sociable, social ♦ tent caterpillar. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "communal": livestock population ♦ pooled buffer. (references) |
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | ![]() | Food in Britain. This poultry club in England has been organized by a group of air raid wardens on a communal basis. By forming a group, they get rationed feed for the hens and share the eggs. The enterprise is conducted in one of the most aristocratic of. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Judith Plaskow | Human beings are fundamentally communal; our individuality is a product of community, and our choices are shaped by our being with others. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | In those parts of the preceding line which do not coincide with administrative boundaries, the Commission will endeavour to keep to the line indicated, while taking into consideration, so far as is possible, local economic interests and existing communal boundaries. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Free and secret communal (local) elections were held in the G.D.R. on May 6, and the CDU again won. (references) | |
To expand communal land holdings, for decades peasants have invaded private lands and petitioned for government recognition of the seizures. (references) | ||
Local politics will certainly come into play - at least during the transition to a liberalized market, mostly due to the public ownership of many power distributors at communal level. (references) | ||
Children | Mongolia | The society has a long tradition of support for communal raising of children. (references) |
India | In February 2000 the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern "about the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, especially those belonging to the lower castes and from poor urban and rural areas, in the contexts of: Religious and traditional culture; child domestic workers; children living and/or working on the streets; communal violence and ethnic conflict; abuse by security forces in areas of conflict, such as Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states; and trafficking and commercial exploitation, especially girls from neighboring countries, particularly Nepal. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Morocco | Baha'is are forbidden to meet or participate in communal activities. (references) |
Economic History | Bangladesh | Widespread communal violence followed, especially in Calcutta. (references) |
Sri Lanka | Laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, and inheritance are communal. (references) | |
Fiji | Many traditional institutions, including the system of communal land ownership, were maintained. (references) | |
Human Rights | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | He reported that prisoners use a communal pit as a latrine. (references) |
Mauritania | Female prisoners have separate facilities with a communal garden. (references) | |
Rwanda | The ICRC continued its visits to communal jails and military-supervised jails. (references) | |
Indigenous People | Honduras | Indigenous land rights are communal. (references) |
Philippines | It awards such "ancestral domain lands" on the basis of communal rather than individual ownership, impeding sale of the lands by tribal leaders. (references) | |
Japan | The law also left the Ainu with control of only approximately 0.15 percent of their original land holdings and empowered the Government to manage communal assets. (references) | |
Minorities | Nigeria | On April 27, approximately 14 persons were killed in communal clashes between members of the Tiv and Kwala ethnic groups in Plateau State. (references) |
East Timor | There were isolated instances of communal and sectarian violence during the year, although such incidents also had strong political and cultural undertones. (references) | |
Nigeria | Most of the indigenes of the feuding communities are displaced in neighboring villages; hospitals in Onitsha continued to treat victims of the communal violence. (references) | |
Political Economy | Guinea | The communal elections of June 2000 were marked by violence, intimidation, and inconsistencies. (references) |
Morocco | Cities and rural communes elect communal councils headed by presidents chosen by the council members. (references) | |
Guinea | Former Prime Minister Sidya Touré heads a new political party, Union des Forces Republicaines (UFR), thatpresented candidates for the June 2000 communal elections. (references) | |
Political Rights | Cyprus | Under the 1960 Constitution, voting takes place on a communal basis. (references) |
Madagascar | In November 1999, communal elections were held in which AREMA won more than 40 percent of the mayoral races. (references) | |
Switzerland | Women occupy 55 of the 246 seats in the Parliament, 2 of 7 seats in the Federal Council (Cabinet), roughly one-fourth of the seats in the cantonal government executive bodies, and one-fifth of the seats in the communal executives. (references) | |
Trade | Switzerland | Cantonal and communal governments offer a wider variety of incentives, including financing, for investment projects in their respective areas. (references) |
Ukraine | Our activities address the urgent humanitarian and health needs of the people of Ukraine by: 1) supporting the government in moving from universal housing and communal services subsidies to targeted social services; 2) providing humanitarian assistance and strengthening the ability of non-governmental organizations to deliver social services; 3) laying the foundation for a sustainable system of pensions and social insurance; 4) providing training and supplies to improve the quality of and access to reproductive health care and the screening for and treatment of breast cancer; 5) supporting health partnerships for the promotion of primary health care and exchange of information, training and personnel; 6) providing thyroid cancer screening and psycho-social interventions to child victims of the Chernobyl accident, while strengthening the Ukrainian government's ability to respond to health and environmental crises; and 7) providing technical assistance in addressing both the TB and the STI/HIV/AIDS epidemics. (references) | |
Women | Guinea | Divorce laws generally tend to favor men in awarding custody and dividing communal assets. (references) |
Worker Rights | Namibia | Children below the age of 14 often worked on family-owned commercial farms and in the informal sector, and some also worked in communal areas. (references) |
Cameroon | The authorities continued to allow prison inmates to be contracted out to private employers or used as communal labor for municipal public works. (references) | |
Zambia | The Government also can require citizens to perform labor that is associated with traditional civil or communal obligations, as when all members of a village are called upon to assist in preparing for a visit by a traditional leader or other dignitary. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | Life improved for the Pilgrims but they didn't yet prosper because the contract required that everything they produced be put into a communal pile! |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Communal" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.08% of the time. "Communal" is used about 727 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.08% | 713 | 9,416 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.92% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Total | 100.00% | 727 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "communal": communal lands holder ♦ communal property ♦ communal spirit ♦ communal work ♦ communal worker. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "communal": communal-like. | |
Ending with "communal": inter-communal. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
communal stall wall | 42 |
communal stall | 37 |
communal living | 22 |
communal shower | 18 |
communal | 10 |
communal stalls | 10 |
communal fund jewish | 3 |
communal inventaire | 3 |
bathing communal | 3 |
communal wall | 2 |
bath communal | 2 |
area communal indigenous management programme resource | 2 |
communal disharmony | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "communal"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | shoqëror (familiar, folksy, pragmatic, public, social), komunal (municipal, public), i përbashkët (collective, common, concerted, corporate, joint, mutual, United), i komunës. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كوميوني طائفة, مميز لحياة إجتماعية بسيطة, طائفي (sectarian), ذو علاقة بعامة الشعب, إشتراكي (socialist, socialistic), شيوعي (communist, communistic, red), شعبي (bronchial, classless, demotic, folk, pop, popular, public, vulgar). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | характерен за комуна, комунален (municipal), колективен (collective), обществен (common, open, public, social), общ (aggregate, blanket, broad, collective, common, corporate, general, generic, global, impersonal, joint, omnibus, overall, solid, total, wide), за общо ползуване. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 共同 (Common). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | spoleèný (combined, commensal, common, conjoint, United), obecní (municipal, parochial), komunální. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | sogneomraade (communal area, village area), sogneareal (communal area, village area), Magistrat (communal administration, municipal adminstration), kommuneomraade (communal area, village area). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | terugneming van het huwelijksgoed (retaking of personalty not included in communal estate), goederen van de huwelijksgemeenschap (communal estate, Community property, joint estate of husband and wife), goederen van de gemeenschap (communal estate, Community property, joint estate of husband and wife), gemeenschap van vruchten en inkomsten (communal estate of husband and wife comprising only property acquired after their marriage), gemeenschap van aanwinsten (communal estate of husband and wife comprising only property acquired after their marriage), gemeenschap tot de aanwinsten beperkt (communal estate of husband and wife comprising only property acquired after their marriage). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | همگانی (General, Public, Universal), اشتراکی (Collective). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | yhteisalue (communal area, village area), puolison yksityisen omaisuuden erottaminen yhteisestä omaisuudesta osituksessa ennen varsinaista jakoa (retaking of personalty not included in communal estate), kylän alue (communal area, village area), keskusantenni (communal TV aerial), aviopuolisoiden yhteinen omaisuus (communal estate, Community property, joint estate of husband and wife), ansio-omaisuuden järjestelmä (communal estate of husband and wife comprising only property acquired after their marriage). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | communautaire (communard), commun (common, common or garden), collectif (collective, common), populaire (common), de la communauté. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | kommunal (local, municipal). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | κοινόσ (banal, common, commonplace, mutual, ordinary, stock), κοινόχρηστοσ, κοινοτικόσ (parochial), ανήκων εισ πολλούσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ק"לתי (congregational, parochial), ע"תי, צבורי (congregational, public). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | kommunális, közösségi (common, corporate, public), községi (municipal, rating). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | komunal. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | comunale (city-, municipal, public, town-), della comunit . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 公共 (community, public, public service, society), 共" (common use). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | きょうよう (coercion, common use, cultivation, culture, education, extortion, offer for use, refinement), "うきょう (affidavit, Catholicism, community, deposition, healthy economy, prosperous conditions, public, public service, reverberation, society, the Book of Filial Piety, width, width and narrowness, your instructions or suggestions). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 자치단체. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | co-chadjin (collective). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ommunalcay comunal, comum (accepted, accredited, appellative, blanket, cheap, common, commonplace, demotic, everyday, garden, general, habitual, inelaborate, joint, mutual, ordinary, public, run-of-the-mill, usual, vulgar, vulgarian), popular (common, demotic, exoteric, pinup, popular), público (audience, civil, community, general, notorious, official, public). (various references) comunal, comun (banal, base, common, current, everyday, frequent, general, joint, low, mediocre, mutual, ordinary, rife, universal, usual, vulgar). (various references) общественный (common, community, public, social). (various references) komunalan, javni (open, public). (various references) comunal (township, village), común (common, commonalty, commonplace, community, current, dismal, extensive, familiar, generous, indistinctive, joint, mutual, ordinary, prevailing, rife, team, trite, usual, widespread). (various references) kommunal (civic, municipal), kommun-, kollektiv (aggregate, collective, commune, corporate), gemensam (collective, common, concerted, corporate, joint, mutual, United). (various references) umumi (general), toplumsal (social), müşterek (collective, common, consociate, joint, mutual), halkın malı olan, halk (demo-, demos, folk, grass roots, people, populace, popular, public, the community, the crowd, the million, the people, the vulgar, vulgar). (various references) комунальний (public), общинний. (various references) chung (broad, common, general, public, universal), công (common, public). (various references) cymunol. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "communal": communalism, communalisms, communalist, communalists, communalities, communality, communalize, communalized, communalizes, communalizing, communally. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "communal": intercommunal. (additional references) | |
| |
"Communal" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: communale, communales, Communeau, communi, communial, comuni, comunic, Domhnall. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "communal" (pronounced kumyuw"nul) |
| 5 | -y uw" n u l | tribunal. |
| 4 | -uw" n u l | monsoonal. |
| 3 | -n u l | abdominal, aberrational, aboriginal, additional, adrenal, anal, annal, annul, Arsenal, atonal, attitudinal, autumnal, binational, biphenyl, cantonal, Cardinal, carnal, channel, coeducational, collisional, Colonel, compositional, computational, concessional, conditional, confessional, conformational, confrontational, congregational, congressional, connotational, constitutional, conventional, conversational, cornel, correctional, criminal, Darnel, delusional, denominational, departmental, depositional, devotional, diagonal, dimensional, directional, diurnal, divisional, doctrinal, duodenal, dysfunctional, educational, emotional, empanel, erosional, eternal, exceptional, external, factional, faunal, fennel, fictional, final, flannel, fluxional, foundational, fractional, fraternal, functional, funnel, gastrointestinal, generational, gravitational, hexagonal, hormonal, Hymnal, impanel, impersonal, improvisational, infernal, informational, inspirational, institutional, instructional, intentional, intergenerational, internal, international, interpersonal, intestinal, investigational, Invitational, irrational, journal, jurisdictional, juvenile, kennel, kernel, latitudinal, longitudinal, luminal, marginal, maternal, medicinal, monoclonal, morainal, motivational, multinational, national, navigational, nocturnal, nominal, noncriminal, nonprofessional, nontraditional, nutritional, obsessional, occasional, occupational, octagonal, operational, optional, organizational, original, panel, paternal, penal, personal, phenomenal, polygonal, polyvinyl, processional, professional, promotional, proportional, provisional, rational, recreational, regional, relational, renal, representational, retinal, rotational, seasonal, sectional, semifinal, seminal, sensational, sentinel, shrapnel, signal, situational, spinal, subliminal, superregional, supranational, terminal, tonal, traditional, transformational, transitional, transnational, tunnel, unconditional, unconstitutional, unconventional, unemotional, unintentional, unprofessional, untraditional, vaginal, venal, vernal, Vinal, vinyl, virginal, vocational. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-l-m-m-n-o-u" | |
-2 letters: column. | |
-3 letters: comal, comma, locum, macon. | |
-4 letters: alum, ammo, calm, calo, caul, clam, clan, clon, coal, cola, coma, culm, loam, loan, loca, luna, malm, mano, maul, maun, moan, mola, muon, noma, ulan, ulna, unco. | |
-5 letters: amu, cam, can, col, con, cum, lac, lam, lum, mac, man, moa, moc, mol, mom, mon, mum, mun, nam. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-l-m-m-n-o-u" | |
+2 letters: communally. | |
+3 letters: communalism, communalist, communality, communalize. | |
+4 letters: communalisms, communalists, communalized, communalizes, communicable, communicably, consummately, incommutable, incommutably, uncommercial. | |
+5 letters: commensurable, commensurably, communalities, communalizing, immunological, intercommunal, monomolecular. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Historic | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.