What does the word society mean

A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes.

So far as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap. A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology, and also applied to distinctive subsections of a larger society.

More broadly, and especially within structuralist thought, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a varied collection of individuals. In this regard, society can mean the objective relationships people have with the material world and with other people, rather than «other people» beyond the individual and their familiar social environment.

Etymology and usage[edit]

The term «society» came from the 12th-century French société (meaning ‘company’).^[1] This was in turn from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius («comrade, friend, ally»; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction between parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: «society in general», «society at large», etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this sense may be deemed to be «antisocial». In the 1630s it was used in reference to «people bound by neighborhood and intercourse aware of living together in an ordered community».^[2] However, in the 18th century the Scottish economist, Adam Smith taught that a society «may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other.»^[3]

Conceptions[edit]

Humans fall between presocial and eusocial in the spectrum of animal ethology. The great apes have always been more (Bonobo, Homo, Pan) or less (Gorilla, Pongo) social animals. According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier, one critical novelty in society, in contrast to humanity’s closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos), is the parental role assumed by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is not generally determinable.^[4][5]

In sociology[edit]

Sociologist Peter L. Berger defines society as «…a human product, and nothing but a human product, that yet continuously acts … upon its producer[s].» According to him, society was created by humans, but this creation turns back and creates or molds humans every day.^[6]

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication, and economy: (1) hunters and gatherers, (2) simple agricultural, (3) advanced agricultural, (4) industrial, and (5) special (e.g. fishing societies or maritime societies).^[7] This is similar to the system earlier developed by anthropologists Morton H. Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, who have produced a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:

• Hunter-gatherer bands (categorization of duties and responsibilities). Then came the agricultural society.
• Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
• Stratified structures led by chieftains.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

In addition to this, there are:

• Humanity, humankind, upon which rest all the elements of society, including society’s beliefs.
• Virtual society, a society based on online identity, which is evolving in the information age.

Over time, some cultures have progressed toward more complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes settled around seasonal food stocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states.^[8]

Types[edit]

Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies, the ways that humans use technology to provide needs for themselves. Although humans have established many types of societies throughout history, anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as resources, prestige, or power. Virtually all societies have developed some degree of inequality among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of a society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, or power. Sociologists place societies in three broad categories: pre-industrial, industrial, and postindustrial.^[9]

Pre-industrial[edit]

In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, and agricultural.^[7]

Hunting and gathering[edit]

The main form of food production in hunter-gatherer societies is the daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food.^[10] As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts, and usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes. However, some hunting and gathering societies in areas with abundant resources (such as the people of Tlingit in North America) lived in larger groups and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdom. The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies.^[11] Bands consist of 15 to 50 people related by kinship.^[12] Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is personal—charismatic—and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no political offices containing real power, and a chief is merely a person of influence.^[13] The family forms the main social unit, with most members being related by birth or marriage.^[14] The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the «original affluent society» due to their extended leisure time:^[15] adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.^[16]

Pastoral[edit]

Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another.^[17] Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger populations. Since there are food surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result, the division of labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic activities) becomes more complex.^[9] For example, some people become craftworkers, producing tools, weapons, and jewelry, among other items of value. The production of goods encourages trade. This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than others do. These families often gain power through their increased wealth. The passing on of property from one generation to another helps to centralize wealth and power. Over time emerge hereditary chieftainships, the typical form of government in pastoral societies.

Horticultural[edit]

Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level of technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Historians use the phrase Agricultural Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 10,000 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals.^[18] Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-burn method to raise crops.^[19] The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as fertilizers.^[20] Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one or more seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a fairly long period of time. This allows them to build semipermanent or permanent villages.^[21] The size of a village’s population depends on the amount of land available for farming; thus villages can range from as few as 30 people to as many as 2000.

As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders.^[21] This role specialization allows people to create a wide variety of artifacts. As in pastoral societies, surplus food can lead to inequalities in wealth and power within horticultural political systems, developed because of the settled nature of horticultural life.

Agrarian[edit]

Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over a large area. According to Lenski, the difference between horticultural and agrarian societies is the use of the plow.^[22] Increases in food supplies due to improved technology led to larger populations than in earlier communities. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.

Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agrarian societies. For example, women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. However, as food stores improved and women took on different roles in providing food for the family, men took an increasingly dominant role in society. As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from «lesser» members of society.

Industrial[edit]

Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged. Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned. Europe’s exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in European societies.

Industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the production of goods.^[23] This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than before. Now the surplus was not just agricultural goods, but also manufactured goods. This larger surplus caused all of the changes discussed earlier in the domestication revolution to become even more pronounced.

Once again, the population boomed.^[24] Increased productivity made more goods available to everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before. The breakup of agricultural-based societies caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in cities.^[25] This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers who could be hired for extremely low wages.

Post-industrial[edit]

Post-industrial societies are societies dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods.^[26] Advanced industrial societies are now seeing a shift toward an increase in service sectors over manufacturing and production. The United States is the first country to have over half of its workforce employed in service industries. Service industries include government, research, education, health, sales, law, and banking.

Characteristics[edit]

Gender[edit]

The division of humans into male and female gender roles has been marked culturally by a corresponding division of norms, practices, dress, behavior, rights, duties, privileges, status, and power. Cultural differences by gender have often been believed to have arisen naturally out of a division of reproductive labor; the biological fact that women give birth led to their further cultural responsibility for nurturing and caring for children.^[27] Gender roles have varied historically, and challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies.^[28][29]

Kinship[edit]

All human societies organize, recognize and classify types of social relationships based on relations between parents, children and other descendants (consanguinity), and relations through marriage (affinity). There is also a third type applied to godparents or adoptive children (fictive). These culturally defined relationships are referred to as kinship. In many societies, it is one of the most important social organizing principles and plays a role in transmitting status and inheritance.^[30] All societies have rules of incest taboo, according to which marriage between certain kinds of kin relations are prohibited and some also have rules of preferential marriage with certain kin relations.^[31]

Ethnicity[edit]

Human ethnic groups are a social category that identifies together as a group based on shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. These can be a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area.^[32][33] Ethnicity is separate from the concept of race, which is based on physical characteristics, although both are socially constructed.^[34] Assigning ethnicity to a certain population is complicated, as even within common ethnic designations there can be a diverse range of subgroups, and the makeup of these ethnic groups can change over time at both the collective and individual level.^[35] Also, there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes an ethnic group.^[36] Ethnic groupings can play a powerful role in the social identity and solidarity of ethnopolitical units. This has been closely tied to the rise of the nation state as the predominant form of political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries.^[37][38][39]

Government and politics[edit]

The early distribution of political power was determined by the availability of fresh water, fertile soil, and temperate climate of different locations.^[40] As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between these different groups increased. This led to the development of governance within and between the communities.^[41] As communities got bigger the need for some form of governance increased, as all large societies without a government have struggled to function.^[42] Humans have evolved the ability to change affiliation with various social groups relatively easily, including previously strong political alliances, if doing so is seen as providing personal advantages.^[43] This cognitive flexibility allows individual humans to change their political ideologies, with those with higher flexibility less likely to support authoritarian and nationalistic stances.^[44]

Governments create laws and policies that affect the citizens that they govern. There have been multiple forms of government throughout human history, each having various means of obtaining power and the ability to exert diverse controls on the population.^[45] As of 2017, more than half of all national governments are democracies, with 13% being autocracies and 28% containing elements of both.^[46] Many countries have formed international political organizations and alliances, the largest being the United Nations with 193 member states.^[47]

Trade and economics[edit]

Trade, the voluntary exchange of goods and services, is seen as a characteristic that differentiates humans from other animals and has been cited as a practice that gave Homo sapiens a major advantage over other hominids.^[48] Evidence suggests early H. sapiens made use of long-distance trade routes to exchange goods and ideas, leading to cultural explosions and providing additional food sources when hunting was sparse, while such trade networks did not exist for the now extinct Neanderthals.^[49][50] Early trade likely involved materials for creating tools like obsidian.^[51] The first truly international trade routes were around the spice trade through the Roman and medieval periods.^[52]

Early human economies were more likely to be based around gift giving instead of a bartering system.^[53] Early money consisted of commodities; the oldest being in the form of cattle and the most widely used being cowrie shells.^[54] Money has since evolved into governmental issued coins, paper and electronic money.^[54] Human study of economics is a social science that looks at how societies distribute scarce resources among different people.^[55] There are massive inequalities in the division of wealth among humans; the eight richest humans are worth the same net monetary value as the poorest half of all the human population.^[56]

Conflict[edit]

Humans commit violence on other humans at a rate comparable to other primates, but kill adult humans at a high rate (with infanticide being more common among other animals).^[57] It is predicted that 2% of early H. sapiens would be killed, rising to 12% during the medieval period, before dropping to below 2% in modern times.^[58] There is great variation in violence between human populations with rates of homicide in societies that have legal systems and strong cultural attitudes against violence at about 0.01%.^[59]

The willingness of humans to kill other members of their species en masse through organized conflict (i.e., war) has long been the subject of debate. One school of thought is that war evolved as a means to eliminate competitors, and has always been an innate human characteristic. Another suggests that war is a relatively recent phenomenon and appeared due to changing social conditions.^[60] While not settled, the current evidence suggests warlike predispositions only became common about 10,000 years ago, and in many places much more recently than that.^[60] War has had a high cost on human life; it is estimated that during the 20th century, between 167 million and 188 million people died as a result of war.^[61]

Contemporary usage[edit]

The term «society» is currently used to cover both a number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations.

Western[edit]

The development of the Western world has brought with it the emerging concepts of Western culture, politics, and ideas, often referred to simply as «Western society». Geographically, it covers at the very least the countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. It sometimes also includes Eastern Europe, South America, and Israel.

The cultures and lifestyles of all of these stem from Western Europe. They all enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, allow freedom of religion, have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and international trade, are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation.^[62]

Information[edit]

Although the concept of information society has been under discussion since the 1930s, in the modern world it is almost always applied to the manner in which information technologies have impacted society and culture. It, therefore, covers the effects of computers and telecommunications on the home, the workplace, schools, government, and various communities and organizations, as well as the emergence of new social forms in cyberspace.^[63]

One of the European Union’s areas of interest is the information society. Here, policies are directed towards promoting an open and competitive digital economy, research into information and communication technologies, as well as their application to improve social inclusion, public services, and quality of life.^[64]

The International Telecommunication Union’s World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva and Tunis (2003 and 2005) has led to a number of policy and application areas where action is envisaged.^[65]

Knowledge[edit]

As the access to electronic information resources increased at the beginning of the 21st century, special attention was extended from the information society to the knowledge society. An analysis by the Irish government stated, «The capacity to manipulate, store and transmit large quantities of information cheaply has increased at a staggering rate over recent years. The digitisation of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. As much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is now said to be due to new and better knowledge.»^[66]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Boyd, Robert; Richerson, Peter J. (12 November 2009). «Culture and the evolution of human cooperation». Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1533): 3281–3288. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0134. PMC 2781880. PMID 19805434.
• Bicchieri, Cristina; Muldoon, Ryan; Sontuoso, Alessandro (1 March 2011). «Social Norms».
• Briggs, Asa (2000). The Age of Improvement (2nd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-36959-7.
• Bulliet, Richard; Crossley, Pamela; Headrick, Daniel; Hirsch, Steven; Johnson, Lyman (2015). The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Vol. 1 (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781285445670.
• Clutton-Brock, T.; West, S.; Ratnieks, F.; Foley, R. (12 November 2009). «The evolution of society». Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1533): 3127–3133. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0207. PMC 2781882. PMID 19805421.
• Dunfey, Theo Spanos (29 May 2019). «What is Social Change and Why Should We Care?». Southern New Hampshire University.
• Lenski, Gerhard E. (1974). Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN 978-0-07-037172-9.
• OpenStax (2021). Introduction to Sociology, 3rd edition (PDF). Rice University. p. 99. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
• Rummel, R.J. (1976). «The State, Political System and Society». Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix.

Further reading[edit]

• Althusser, Louis; Balibar, Étienne (2009). Reading Capital. London: Verso.
• Bottomore, Tom, ed. (1991). A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 45–48.
• Calhoun, Craig, ed. (2002). Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press.
• Griffen, Leonid (2021). «The Society as a Superorganism» (PDF). The Scientific Heritage. 5 (67): 51–60. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2021.
• Hall, Stuart (1977). «Rethinking the Base and Superstructure Metaphor». In Bloomfield, J. (ed.). Papers on Class, Hegemony and Party. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
• Harman, Chris (Summer 1986). «Base and Superstructure». International Socialism. 2 (32): 3–44. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015.
• Harvey, David (2010). A Companion to Marx’s Capital. London: Verso.
• Jenkins, Richard (2002). Foundations of Sociology. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-333-96050-9.
• Larrain, Jorge (1983). Marxism and Ideology. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
• Lukács, Georg (1972). History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labour, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
• Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Fontana.
• — (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Princeton’s WordNetRate this definition:2.9 / 26 votes

1. societynoun

   an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization

2. club, social club, society, guild, gild, lodge, ordernoun

   a formal association of people with similar interests

   «he joined a golf club»; «they formed a small lunch society»; «men from the fraternal order will staff the soup kitchen today»

3. company, companionship, fellowship, societynoun

   the state of being with someone

   «he missed their company»; «he enjoyed the society of his friends»

4. society, high society, beau monde, smart set, bon tonnoun

   the fashionable elite

WiktionaryRate this definition:2.9 / 7 votes

1. societynoun

   A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms.

   This society has been known for centuries for its colorful clothing and tight-knit family structure.

2. societynoun

   A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization.

   It was then that they decided to found a society of didgeridoo-playing unicyclists.

3. societynoun

   The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals.

4. societynoun

   The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole.

5. societynoun

   High society.

   Smith was first introduced into society at the Duchess of Grand Fenwick’s annual rose garden party.

6. societynoun

   A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.

7. Etymology: From societé, from societas.

Samuel Johnson’s DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Societynoun

   Etymology: societé, French; societas, Latin.

   1. Union of many in one general interest.2. Numbers united in one interest; community.

   As the practice of piety and virtue is agreeable to our reason, so is it for the interest of private persons and publick societies.
   John Tillotson.

   3. Company; converse.

   To make society
   The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
   Till supper time alone.
   William Shakespeare, Macbeth.

   Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
   Who having seen me in my worser state,
   Shunn’d my abhorr’d society.
   William Shakespeare, K. Lear.

   Solitude sometimes is best society,
   And short retirement urges sweet return.
   John Milton.

   4. Partnership; union on equal terms.

   Among unequals what society can sort?
   John Milton.

   Heav’n’s greatness no society can bear;
   Servants he made, and those thou want’st not here.
   Dryden.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Society

   A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.
   Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or concepts as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes.
   So far as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would otherwise be difficult on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap. A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology, and also applied to distinctive subsections of a larger society.
   More broadly, and especially within structuralist thought, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a varied collection of individuals. In this regard society can mean the objective relationships people have with the material world and with other people, rather than «other people» beyond the individual and their familiar social environment.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:2.8 / 5 votes

1. Societynoun

   the relationship of men to one another when associated in any way; companionship; fellowship; company

2. Societynoun

   connection; participation; partnership

3. Societynoun

   a number of persons associated for any temporary or permanent object; an association for mutual or joint usefulness, pleasure, or profit; a social union; a partnership; as, a missionary society

4. Societynoun

   the persons, collectively considered, who live in any region or at any period; any community of individuals who are united together by a common bond of nearness or intercourse; those who recognize each other as associates, friends, and acquaintances

5. Societynoun

   specifically, the more cultivated portion of any community in its social relations and influences; those who mutually give receive formal entertainments

6. Etymology: [L. societas, fr. socius a companion: cf. F. socit. See Social.]

FreebaseRate this definition:3.7 / 14 votes

1. Society

   A society, or a human society, is a group of people involved with each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.
   Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.
   A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.
   More broadly, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups. A society can be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons; a nation state, such as Bhutan; or a broader cultural group, such as a Western society. The word society may also refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A «society» may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism such as an ant colony or any cooperative aggregate such as, for example, in some formulations of artificial intelligence.

The Roycroft DictionaryRate this definition:3.5 / 2 votes

1. society

   1. An erotic clique that reads _Vogue_, _Smart Set_ and _Town Topics_. 2. A congregation of people who are not persons. 3. A vast interchange of service through labor, ideas and commodities. 4. A relish for solitude.

Editors ContributionRate this definition:4.0 / 1 vote

1. society

   The people of a specific area, community, locality, region, country, nation or planet as an intelligent being, consciousness and whole.

   Society has a duty of to provide an existence where everyone lives in harmony and balance and everything is shared and created for the optimum health, human rights and shared prosperity of all members of society.

   Submitted by MaryC on February 13, 2020  

Matched Categories

1. • Association
   • Elite
   • Friendship
   • Social Group

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘society’ in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #354

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘society’ in Written Corpus Frequency: #889

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘society’ in Nouns Frequency: #93

How to pronounce society?

How to say society in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of society in Chaldean Numerology is: 6

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of society in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6

Examples of society in a Sentence

1. Michelle Edkins:

   There is a lot more debate around these issues and it’s across so many segments of society.

2. Konstantin Bogomolov:

   It’s a bit of mockery of the political situation in general, of course. But mostly it’s about the aesthetics of society, how we speak of what’s going on, by having a go at the aesthetics of the society, rather than political questions, you hit the people harder.

3. Donna Lieberman:

   Our correctional system does not exist to punish people, and the fundamental premise of our parole system is to allow people to repair their lives, today, the parole board delivered an important message to the entire country, and showed that New York stands for justice and recognizes that those incarcerated should be given a chance to return to society.

4. John Maynard Keynes:

   Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency… Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose.

5. Trent Garner:

   I decided to push the bill forward to protect those that were born differently, through the disastrous procedure of abortion, we lose valuable and special people from society.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

---

Translations for society

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

• samelewing, gemeenskapAfrikaans
• مجتمع, اجتماعيةArabic
• cəmiyyətAzerbaijani
• грама́дстваBelarusian
• обществоBulgarian
• সমাজBengali
• societatCatalan, Valencian
• společnostCzech
• cymdeithasWelsh
• samfundDanish
• GesellschaftGerman
• εταιρεία, κοινωνία, σύλλογοςGreek
• societo, socioEsperanto
• sociedad, comunidadSpanish
• ühiskondEstonian
• جامعهPersian
• yhteiskunta, seura, yhdistys, yhteisö, kerhoFinnish
• samfelagFaroese
• sociétéFrench
• maatskippijWestern Frisian
• cumann, tsochaíIrish
• cuideachd, comann-sòisealta, sòisealtasScottish Gaelic
• sociedadeGalician
• સમાજGujarati
• חברהHebrew
• समाजHindi
• társaságHungarian
• հասարակություն, ընկերությունArmenian
• societateInterlingua
• masyarakatIndonesian
• socioIdo
• samfélag, þjóðfélag, félagIcelandic
• associazione, societàItalian
• החברהHebrew
• 組織, 社会Japanese
• საზოგადოებაGeorgian
• қауым, қоғам, социумKazakh
• សង្គម, សមាគមKhmer
• ಸಮಾಜKannada
• 연구회, 사회, 회, 조합, 동호회, 학회, 단체, 社會, 협회, 모임Korean
• کۆمه‌ڵایه‌تیKurdish
• коомKyrgyz
• societāsLatin
• ສັງຄົມLao
• visuomenėLithuanian
• sabiedrībaLatvian
• fiarahamoninaMalagasy
• porihangaMāori
• општествоMacedonian
• സമൂഹംMalayalam
• нийгэмMongolian
• समाजMarathi
• masyarakatMalay
• soċjetà, ġens, għaqdaMaltese
• လူ့ဘောင်, လူတော, လူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်းBurmese
• maatschappij, gezelschap, sociëteit, vereniging, samenlevingDutch
• samfunnNorwegian
• societatOccitan
• ସମାଜOriya
• towarzystwo, społeczeństwo, stowarzyszeniePolish
• agremiação, associação, sociedade, grupo, grêmioPortuguese
• sozietad, societed, societad, societàRomansh
• societate, mediuRomanian
• общество, социум, народRussian
• друштво, zȁjednica, drúštvoSerbo-Croatian
• සමාජයSinhala, Sinhalese
• spoločnosťSlovak
• družbaSlovene
• shoqëriAlbanian
• samhälle, föreningSwedish
• jamiiSwahili
• சமூகம்Tamil
• సంఘం, సంపన్న వర్గం, సమాజంTelugu
• ҷомеа, ҷамоат, ҷамъиятTajik
• สังคมThai
• jemgyýetTurkmen
• samahan, lipunan, sambayananTagalog
• toplumTurkish
• җәмгыятьTatar
• суспільствоUkrainian
• سماجUrdu
• jamiyat, jamoaUzbek
• xã hội, 社會Vietnamese
• געזעלשאַפטYiddish
• 社会Chinese

Get even more translations for society »

Translation

Find a translation for the society definition in other languages:

Select another language:

• — Select —
• 简体中文 (Chinese — Simplified)
• 繁體中文 (Chinese — Traditional)
• Español (Spanish)
• Esperanto (Esperanto)
• 日本語 (Japanese)
• Português (Portuguese)
• Deutsch (German)
• العربية (Arabic)
• Français (French)
• Русский (Russian)
• ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
• 한국어 (Korean)
• עברית (Hebrew)
• Gaeilge (Irish)
• Українська (Ukrainian)
• اردو (Urdu)
• Magyar (Hungarian)
• मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
• Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Italiano (Italian)
• தமிழ் (Tamil)
• Türkçe (Turkish)
• తెలుగు (Telugu)
• ภาษาไทย (Thai)
• Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
• Čeština (Czech)
• Polski (Polish)
• Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Românește (Romanian)
• Nederlands (Dutch)
• Ελληνικά (Greek)
• Latinum (Latin)
• Svenska (Swedish)
• Dansk (Danish)
• Suomi (Finnish)
• فارسی (Persian)
• ייִדיש (Yiddish)
• հայերեն (Armenian)
• Norsk (Norwegian)
• English (English)

Word of the Day

Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?

---

Citation

Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:

Word	SOCIETY
Character	7
Hyphenation	so ci e ty
Pronunciations	/səˈsaɪ.ə.ti/

Sorry, your browser does not support the audio element!

What do we mean by society?

The totality of people regarded as forming a community of interdependent individuals. noun

A group of people broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture. noun

An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest. noun

The wealthy, socially dominant members of a community. noun

Companionship; company. noun

A colony or community of organisms, usually of the same species. noun

Fellowship; companionship; company: as, to enjoy the society of the learned; to avoid the society of the vicious. noun

Participation; sympathy. noun

Those persons collectively who are united by the common bond of neighborhood and intercourse, and who recognize one another as associates, friends, and acquaintances. noun

An entire civilized community, or a body of some or all such communities collectively, with its or their body of common interests and aims: with especial reference to the state of civilization, thought, usage, etc., at any period or in any land or region. noun

Specifically The more cultivated part of any community in its social and intellectual relations, interests, and influences; in a narrow sense, those, collectively, who are recognized as taking the lead in fashionable life; those persons of wealth and position who profess to act in accordance with a more or less artificial and exclusive code of etiquette; fashionable people in general: as, he is not received into society. In this sense frequently used adjectively: as, society people; society gossip; a society journal. noun

An organized association of persons united for the promotion of some common purpose or object, whether religious, benevolent, literary, scientific, political, convivial, or other; an association for pleasure, profit, or usefulness; a social union; a partnership; a club: as, the Society of Friends; the Society of the Cincinnati; a sewing society; a friendly society. noun

Specifically In ecclesiastical law, in some of the United States, the corporation or secular body organized pursuant to law with power to sue and be sued, and to hold and administer all the temporalities of a religious society or church, as distinguished from the body of communicants or members united bya confession of faith. noun

Synonyms Corporation, fraternity, brotherhood. noun

6 and noun

Union, league, lodge. noun

The relationship of men to one another when associated in any way; companionship; fellowship; company. noun

Connection; participation; partnership. noun

A number of persons associated for any temporary or permanent object; an association for mutual or joint usefulness, pleasure, or profit; a social union; a partnership. noun

A long-standing group of people sharing cultural aspects such as language, dress, norms of behavior and artistic forms.

A group of people who meet from time to time to engage in a common interest; an association or organization.

The sum total of all voluntary interrelations between individuals.

The people of one’s country or community taken as a whole.

High society.

A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.

Society is a rather odd organization. It uses such tactics like «Think like everyone else», «Be like everyone else», and «If anyone thinks for themselves, beat them». Urban Dictionary

1)
The ‘society’ is a number of persons regarded as constituting a single group or community.
2)
The complex of factors, as activities, attitudes, and environment, characterizing any such group.
3)
The worldwide community made up of all human beings. Urban Dictionary

An utter fucking shithole!
Society is in a rapid advanced state of moral decay!
We are swirling the proverbial toilet bowl folks! Urban Dictionary

Crumbling……
It’s crumbling……… Urban Dictionary

1. You must conform to others. If other people smoke, drink, have sex at a young age, and go out every night, you have to, too. If you don’t and «be yourself»… well, you’re a fag with no life.
2. Only heterosexuals are accpeted here. If you are ANY other sexuality, be it gay, lesbian, or bisexual, you with be physically/ verbally abused by «normal» heteros, even if you didn’t to SHIT to anyone.
3. Virginity is evil. If you are still a virgin by the time you are 15 years old, you will be attacked by people who don’t have the social sin of «virginity». Oh? STDs? Pregnacy? Don’t worry about these things, only an orgasm matters. Oh, and if you are male, you must sleep with multiple women. If not… you’re a loser.
4. Minorities are also evil. If you are black, Mexican, Asian; any other ethnic group besides white, then be prepared to be bombarded with racial slurs and stereotypes. Also, if you are a woman, be ready for sexist pigs, rape, chauvinists, and men who only want sex to lie to you. Oh, and if you get pregnant, it’s all YOUR fault, even though the man had just as much to do with it. Women are evil.
6. If you are a great painter, an excellent writer, have an IQ above, watch TV, a wonderful and skilled video gamer, a loner, a kind person, a reader, or just like being indoors away from rapists, murderers, and thugs… you need to get fucking laid and a life. Sex, drugs, and alcohol are the only exceptable hobbies here, and if you talk about anything else, no one cares. Urban Dictionary

A mass of people living in a country who say ‘Yes and Amen’ to everything and are basically fucked up in their head and have nothing better to do than work/make money/consume and not bother with the questions of ‘being’ rather than ‘having’. Urban Dictionary

A word that is, when combined with ‘sybolism’, a GUARANTEED A in advanced English class. Urban Dictionary

An ecosystem in which homo sapiens dwell. Most individual homo sapiens try to copy what the other creature does to fit into a pack or group although they are blissfully unaware of what they are doing. We are just like apes, unaware of the effect we have on mankind and the world, unlike that of scientist. Urban Dictionary

See stupid. Need I say more? Urban Dictionary

Something we live in Urban Dictionary

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Sheldon Grant

Score: 4.1/5
(46 votes)

A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.

What is an example of society?

Society is defined as a group of people living as a community or an organized group of people for a common purpose. An example of society is Lancaster, Pennsylvania. An example of society is the Catholic Daughters of the Americas. … An example of society is a party attended by socialites.

What is society in simple words?

Society is the term to describe human beings together (collective, the sum of their social networks and social interactions). … People form societies in order to gain greater benefits as a group than would be possible separately. Many animals beside humans also do this, such as wolves or eusocial insects.

What is the deeper meaning of society?

1 : companionship or association with one’s fellows : friendly or intimate intercourse : company. 2 : a voluntary association of individuals for common ends especially : an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession.

What are the types of society?

There have been six types of societies throughout history:

25 related questions found