Common \Com"mon\, a. [Compar. Commoner; superl. Commonest.]
[OE. commun, comon, OF. comun, F. commun, fr. L. communis;
com- + munis ready to be of service; cf. Skr. mi to make
fast, set up, build, Goth. gamains common, G. gemein, and E.
mean low, common. Cf. Immunity, Commune, n. & v.]
1. Belonging or relating equally, or similarly, to more than
one; as, you and I have a common interest in the property.
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Though life and sense be common to men and brutes.
--Sir M. Hale.
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2. Belonging to or shared by, affecting or serving, all the
members of a class, considered together; general; public;
as, properties common to all plants; the common schools;
the Book of Common Prayer.
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Such actions as the common good requireth. --Hooker.
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The common enemy of man. --Shak.
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3. Often met with; usual; frequent; customary.
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Grief more than common grief. --Shak.
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4. Not distinguished or exceptional; inconspicuous; ordinary;
plebeian; -- often in a depreciatory sense.
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The honest, heart-felt enjoyment of common life.
--W. Irving.
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This fact was infamous
And ill beseeming any common man,
Much more a knight, a captain and a leader. --Shak.
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Above the vulgar flight of common souls. --A.
Murphy.
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5. Profane; polluted. [Obs.]
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What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
--Acts x. 15.
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6. Given to habits of lewdness; prostitute.
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A dame who herself was common. --L'Estrange.
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Common bar (Law) Same as Blank bar, under Blank.
Common barrator (Law), one who makes a business of
instigating litigation.
Common Bench, a name sometimes given to the English Court
of Common Pleas.
Common brawler (Law), one addicted to public brawling and
quarreling. See Brawler.
Common carrier (Law), one who undertakes the office of
carrying (goods or persons) for hire. Such a carrier is
bound to carry in all cases when he has accommodation, and
when his fixed price is tendered, and he is liable for all
losses and injuries to the goods, except those which
happen in consequence of the act of God, or of the enemies
of the country, or of the owner of the property himself.
Common chord (Mus.), a chord consisting of the fundamental
tone, with its third and fifth.
Common council, the representative (legislative) body, or
the lower branch of the representative body, of a city or
other municipal corporation.
Common crier, the crier of a town or city.
Common divisor (Math.), a number or quantity that divides
two or more numbers or quantities without a remainder; a
common measure.
Common gender (Gram.), the gender comprising words that may
be of either the masculine or the feminine gender.
Common law, a system of jurisprudence developing under the
guidance of the courts so as to apply a consistent and
reasonable rule to each litigated case. It may be
superseded by statute, but unless superseded it controls.
--Wharton.
Note: It is by others defined as the unwritten law
(especially of England), the law that receives its
binding force from immemorial usage and universal
reception, as ascertained and expressed in the
judgments of the courts. This term is often used in
contradistinction from statute law. Many use it to
designate a law common to the whole country. It is also
used to designate the whole body of English (or other)
law, as distinguished from its subdivisions, local,
civil, admiralty, equity, etc. See Law.
Common lawyer, one versed in common law.
Common lewdness (Law), the habitual performance of lewd
acts in public.
Common multiple (Arith.) See under Multiple.
Common noun (Gram.), the name of any one of a class of
objects, as distinguished from a proper noun (the name of
a particular person or thing).
Common nuisance (Law), that which is deleterious to the
health or comfort or sense of decency of the community at
large.
Common pleas, one of the three superior courts of common
law at Westminster, presided over by a chief justice and
four puisne judges. Its jurisdiction is confined to civil
matters. Courts bearing this title exist in several of the
United States, having, however, in some cases, both civil
and criminal jurisdiction extending over the whole State.
In other States the jurisdiction of the common pleas is
limited to a county, and it is sometimes called a county
court. Its powers are generally defined by statute.
Common prayer, the liturgy of the Church of England, or of
the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States,
which all its clergy are enjoined to use. It is contained
in the Book of Common Prayer.
Common school, a school maintained at the public expense,
and open to all.
Common scold (Law), a woman addicted to scolding
indiscriminately, in public.
Common seal, a seal adopted and used by a corporation.
Common sense.
(a) A supposed sense which was held to be the common bond
of all the others. [Obs.] --Trench.
(b) Sound judgment. See under Sense.
Common time (Mus.), that variety of time in which the
measure consists of two or of four equal portions.
In common, equally with another, or with others; owned,
shared, or used, in community with others; affecting or
affected equally.
Out of the common, uncommon; extraordinary.
Tenant in common, one holding real or personal property in
common with others, having distinct but undivided
interests. See Joint tenant, under Joint.
To make common cause with, to join or ally one's self with.
Syn: General; public; popular; national; universal; frequent;
ordinary; customary; usual; familiar; habitual; vulgar;
mean; trite; stale; threadbare; commonplace. See
Mutual, Ordinary, General.
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Sense \Sense\, n. [L. sensus, from sentire, sensum, to perceive,
to feel, from the same root as E. send; cf. OHG. sin sense,
mind, sinnan to go, to journey, G. sinnen to meditate, to
think: cf. F. sens. For the change of meaning cf. See, v.
t. See Send, and cf. Assent, Consent, Scent, v. t.,
Sentence, Sentient.]
1. (Physiol.) A faculty, possessed by animals, of perceiving
external objects by means of impressions made upon certain
organs (sensory or sense organs) of the body, or of
perceiving changes in the condition of the body; as, the
senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. See
Muscular sense, under Muscular, and Temperature
sense, under Temperature.
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Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep. --Shak.
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What surmounts the reach
Of human sense I shall delineate. --Milton.
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The traitor Sense recalls
The soaring soul from rest. --Keble.
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2. Perception by the sensory organs of the body; sensation;
sensibility; feeling.
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In a living creature, though never so great, the
sense and the affects of any one part of the body
instantly make a transcursion through the whole.
--Bacon.
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3. Perception through the intellect; apprehension;
recognition; understanding; discernment; appreciation.
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This Basilius, having the quick sense of a lover.
--Sir P.
Sidney.
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High disdain from sense of injured merit. --Milton.
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4. Sound perception and reasoning; correct judgment; good
mental capacity; understanding; also, that which is sound,
true, or reasonable; rational meaning. "He speaks sense."
--Shak.
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He raves; his words are loose
As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense.
--Dryden.
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5. That which is felt or is held as a sentiment, view, or
opinion; judgment; notion; opinion.
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I speak my private but impartial sense
With freedom. --Roscommon.
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The municipal council of the city had ceased to
speak the sense of the citizens. --Macaulay.
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6. Meaning; import; signification; as, the true sense of
words or phrases; the sense of a remark.
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So they read in the book in the law of God
distinctly, and gave the sense. --Neh. viii.
8.
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I think 't was in another sense. --Shak.
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7. Moral perception or appreciation.
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Some are so hardened in wickedness as to have no
sense of the most friendly offices. --L' Estrange.
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8. (Geom.) One of two opposite directions in which a line,
surface, or volume, may be supposed to be described by the
motion of a point, line, or surface.
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Common sense, according to Sir W. Hamilton:
(a) "The complement of those cognitions or convictions
which we receive from nature, which all men possess in
common, and by which they test the truth of knowledge
and the morality of actions."
(b) "The faculty of first principles." These two are the
philosophical significations.
(c) "Such ordinary complement of intelligence, that,if a
person be deficient therein, he is accounted mad or
foolish."
(d) When the substantive is emphasized: "Native practical
intelligence, natural prudence, mother wit, tact in
behavior, acuteness in the observation of character,
in contrast to habits of acquired learning or of
speculation."
Moral sense. See under Moral,
(a) .
The inner sense, or The internal sense, capacity of the
mind to be aware of its own states; consciousness;
reflection. "This source of ideas every man has wholly in
himself, and though it be not sense, as having nothing to
do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and
might properly enough be called internal sense." --Locke.
Sense capsule (Anat.), one of the cartilaginous or bony
cavities which inclose, more or less completely, the
organs of smell, sight, and hearing.
Sense organ (Physiol.), a specially irritable mechanism by
which some one natural force or form of energy is enabled
to excite sensory nerves; as the eye, ear, an end bulb or
tactile corpuscle, etc.
Sense organule (Anat.), one of the modified epithelial
cells in or near which the fibers of the sensory nerves
terminate.
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Syn: Understanding; reason.
Usage: Sense, Understanding, Reason. Some philosophers
have given a technical signification to these terms,
which may here be stated. Sense is the mind's acting
in the direct cognition either of material objects or
of its own mental states. In the first case it is
called the outer, in the second the inner, sense.
Understanding is the logical faculty, i. e., the power
of apprehending under general conceptions, or the
power of classifying, arranging, and making
deductions. Reason is the power of apprehending those
first or fundamental truths or principles which are
the conditions of all real and scientific knowledge,
and which control the mind in all its processes of
investigation and deduction. These distinctions are
given, not as established, but simply because they
often occur in writers of the present day.
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