Commune

A commune or comune is a system of social and economic organization which involves the common ownership of resources and/or shared obligations. Within that framework, the word can have various meanings:

• An administrative subdivision of various European and African countries, including France; comprises cities, towns and villages
• A medieval commune, a social organization that appeared in the rising towns of the European Middle Ages
• A kibbutz, an Israeli collective community
• Commune: a kind of intentional community
• People's communes, formerly an administrative division of the People's Republic of China.
• The Paris Commune, brief socialist reformist state in Paris from March 26 to May 30, 1871
• The Shanghai Commune, organized by Zhang Chunqiao in 1967
• The Pinnacle Commune, founded by Rastafarian preacher Leonard Howell

To commune

When used as a verb, to commune a person means to serve the Eucharist to him or her. More generally, to commune with a person means to share something, often information or values, with that person.

Note on pronunciation

The stress is on the second syllable when this word is a verb, and on the first when it is a noun.

See also

Comune, Communism, Communalism and Communitarianism