Community refers to a group sharing a common understanding, and often the same language, law, manners, and/or tradition. It commonly describes a residential or religious collective; a commune, a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other, and a group of people interacting by electronic means for educational, professional, social, or other purposes; a virtual community, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to the condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common, common enjoyment or possession; participation, and common character; likeness, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Community as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include commonness; frequency, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term. Community therefore works well as a quotation category because it can hold direct statements about the subject, figurative uses that borrow its meaning, and broader reflections that stay anchored to the same central idea.
