commonweal
Noun

commonweal (plural commonweals)

  1. (obsolete or archaic) The common good; public wellbeing or prosperity
    • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XIII, In Parliament
      He had to judge the people as justice Errant […]; to equip his milites, send them duly in war-time to the King; — strive every way that the Commonweal, in his quarter of it, take no damage.
  2. The body politic; republic
    • 1531, Thomas Elyot, The Book of the Governor, ch. I,
      [...] hit semeth that men haue ben longe abused in calling Rempublica a commune weale. And they which do suppose it so to be called for that, that euery thinge shulde be to all men in commune without discrepance of any astate or condition, be ther to moued more by sensualite, than by any good reason or inclination to humanite. [...] And consequently there may appere lyke deuersitie to be englisshe, betwene a publike weale & a commune weale, as shulde be in latin betwene Res publica and Res plebeia.



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