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A community of canons or canonesses.

A special privilege, immunity, or exemption. My mother, Who has a charter to extol her blood, When she does praise me, grieves me. Shak.

The aggregate of religious influences in a community; ecclesiastical influence, authority, etc.; as, to array the power of the church against some moral evil. Remember that both church and state are properly the rulers of the people, only because they are their benefactors. Bulwer.

Subject to government; reduced to order; civilized; not barbarous; -- said of the community. England was very rude and barbarous; for it is but even the other day since England grew civil. Spenser.

To unite in one body or product; to combine into one body or community; as, vapors coalesce. The Jews were incapable of coalescing with other nations. Campbell. Certain combinations of ideas that, once coalescing, could not be shaken loose. De Quincey.

The state of a community which permits promiscuous sexual intercourse among its members; -- as in certain primitive tribes or communistic societies. [Written also cenogamy.]

Fig.: A community. [R.] Thick as the college of the bees in May. Dryden. College of justice, a term applied in Scotland to the supreme civil courts and their principal officers. -- The sacred college, the college or cardinals at Rome.

The people; the community. [Obs.] "The weal o' the common." Shak.

The act of sharing; community; participation. "This communion of goods." Blackstone.

Community of limits; contiguity. [R.] Bailey.

has an official charge of preserving the rights and privileges of a city, corporation, community, or estate. The lords of the secret council were likewise made conservators of the peace of the two kingdoms. Clarendon. The conservator of the estate of an idiot. Bouvier. Conservators of the River Thames, a board of comis…

An association or community of recluses devoted to a religious life; a body of monks or nuns. One of our convent, and his [the duke's] confessor. Shak.

engagements. (b) The ability and fidelity of merchants or others who owe largely in a community. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. D. Webster.

Passing from person to person, or from hand to hand; circulating through the community; generally received; common; as, a current coin; a current report; current history. That there was current money in Abraham's time is past doubt. Arbuthnot. Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current. Shak. His current value, whi…

To form into a people or community; to inhabit; to people. [Obs.] We now know 't is very well empeopled. Sir T. Browne.

Common to, or affecting at the same time, a large number in a community; -- applied to a disease which, spreading widely, attacks many persons at the same time; as, an epidemic disease; an epidemic catarrh, fever, etc. See Endemic.

The great classes or orders of a community or state (as the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty of England) or their representatives who administer the government; as, the estates of the realm (England), which are (1) the lords spiritual, (2) the lords temporal, (3) the commons.

The character, sentiment, or disposition of a community or people, considered as a natural endowment; the spirit which actuates manners and customs; also, the characteristic tone or genius of an institution or social organization.

y which others are subject to; to except or excuse from he operation of a law; to grant immunity to; to free from obligation; to release; as, to exempt from military duty, or from jury service; to exempt from fear or pain. Death So snatched will not exempt us from the pain We are by doom to pay. Milton.…

being exempt; freedom from any charge, burden, evil, etc., to which others are subject; immunity; privilege; as, exemption of certain articles from seizure; exemption from military service; exemption from anxiety, suffering, etc.