citizen
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
a person who is a legal member of a country and has rights like voting.
a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth, either native or naturalized.
Simple“After living in the country for ten years, she finally became a citizen.”
In context“The constitution guarantees that every citizen has the right to a fair trial and the freedom to participate in democratic elections.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
someone who lives in a particular town or city.
an inhabitant of a city or town, especially one entitled to the rights and privileges of a free person in that municipality.
Simple“The mayor asked the citizens of the town to help keep the parks clean.”
In context“The local council held a public forum to address the concerns of the citizens regarding the proposed redevelopment of the historic district.”
Synonyms - 03 C1 Advanced
a person who is not in the police or the military.
a member of the general public as distinguished from specialized state groups such as the military or police force.
Simple“The police officer was praised for his polite treatment of the citizen.”
In context“The report highlighted the importance of maintaining a clear distinction between military operations and the rights of the private citizen.”
- 04 C2 Proficiency
a piece of software or data that is treated as a full member of a system.
an entity within a software environment, such as an object or application, that is granted full rights and capabilities within that system.
Simple“In this programming language, functions are treated as first-class citizens.”
In context“By treating asynchronous tasks as first-class citizens, the framework allows developers to manage complex operations with minimal boilerplate code.”
UsageOften used in the phrase 'first-class citizen' to describe data types that can be passed as arguments.
Usage citizen science · citizens living
“Settlers are Israeli citizens who live on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
“Police said the use of force was lawful and came after citizens attacked officers, arguing that there had been no other way to restore public order.”
From Middle English citeseyn, citezein, borrowed from Anglo-Norman citesain (“burgher; city-dweller”), citezein, etc., probably a variant of cithein under influence of deinzein (“denizen”), from Anglo-Norman and Old French citeain, etc. and citaien, citeien, etc. ("burgher"; modern French citoyen), from cité ("settlement; cathedral city, city"; modern French cité) + -ain or -ien (“-an, -ian”). See city and hewe.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.