village n
1. a community of people smaller than a town [syn: small town, settlement]
2. a settlement smaller than a town [syn: hamlet]
3. a mainly residential district of Manhattan; `the Village' became a home for many writers and artists in the 20th century [syn: Greenwich Village]

Village \Vil"lage\ (?; 48), n. [F., fr. L. villaticus belonging to a country house or villa. See Villa, and cf. Villatic.] A small assemblage of houses in the country, less than a town or city. Village cart, a kind of two-wheeled pleasure carriage without a top. Syn: Village, Hamlet, Town, City. Usage: In England, a hamlet denotes a collection of houses, too small to have a parish church. A village has a church, but no market. A town has both a market and a church or churches. A city is, in the legal sense, an incorporated borough town, which is, or has been, the place of a bishop's see. In the United States these distinctions do not hold.

See more meaning on Village...

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousands (sometimes tens of thousands), Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as Hampstead Village in the London conurbation. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings; however, transient villages can occur. Further, the dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement.

Historically, villages were the usual form of community for societies that practise subsistence agriculture, and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church. In many cultures, towns and cities were few, with only a small proportion of the population living in them. The Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in mills and factories; the concentration of people caused many villages to grow into towns and cities. This also enabled specialization of labor and crafts, and development of many trades. The trend of urbanisation continues, though not always in connection with industrialisation. Villages have been eclipsed in importance as units of human society and settlement.

• Arab village in Israel targeted in racial attack
  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Vandals daubed "Arabs out" graffiti and punctured tires in an Arab village near Jerusalem on Tuesday, targeting a community widely seen in Israel as a showcase for Jewish-Arab coexistence. Unlike similar attacks that have damaged Arab mosques, homes, vehicles and olive groves, the vandalism took place in an Arab village in Israel popular with Read more on this news related to 'Village'
• Village spelling row heads for vote
  It is only a missing "t" but a row over the spelling of a village may have to be settled by a referendum after being a hot local topic for years. Read more on this news related to 'Village'
• Westwood Village wants to be cool again
  It's 'never going back' to its heyday as the hottest entertainment neighborhood in L.A., but it hopes to be revitalized through the arts. For decades, Westwood Village was the heartbeat of Los Angeles nightlife while downtown languished in solitude. Westwood had the movie theaters, fancy restaurants and bustling street traffic, and downtown was known as a quiet an Read more on this news related to 'Village'