Community, n.; pl. Communities.
Etymology: [L. communitas: cf. OF. communité. Cf. Commonalty, and see Common.]
1. Common possession or enjoyment; participation; as, a community of goods. The original community of all things. Locke. An unreserved community of thought and feeling. W. Irwing.
2. A body of people having common rights, privileges, or interests, or living in the same place under the same laws and regulations; as, a community of monks. Hence a number of animals living in a common home or with some apparent association of interests. Creatures that in communities exist. Wordsworth.
3. Society at large; a commonwealth or state; a body politic; the public, or people in general. Burdens upon the poorer classes of the community. Hallam.
Note: In this sense, the term should be used with the definite article; as, the interests of the community.
2 more senses
4. Common character; likeness. [R.] The essential community of nature between organic growth and inorganic growth. H. Spencer.
5. Commonness; frequency. [Obs.] Eyes . . . sick and blunted with community. Shak.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for community; he lists it under association, people.
Where he writes about it:
We speak of an alliance of nations, a club of pleasure-seekers, a community of Shakers, a company of soldiers or of friends, a confederacy, confederation, federation, or union of separate states under one general government, a partnership or company of business men, a conjunction of planets. — from association
A community is in general terms the aggregate of persons inhabiting any territory in common and viewed as having common interests; a commonwealth is such a body of persons having a common government, especially a republican government; as, the commonwealth of Massachusetts. — from people
A community may be very small; a commonwealth is ordinarily of considerable extent. — from people
A people is the aggregate of any public community, either in distinction from their rulers or as including them; a race is a division of mankind in the line of origin and ancestry; the people of the United States includes members of almost every race. — from people
As Dean Alford suggests, it would make a strange transformation of the old hymn "All people that on earth do dwell" to sing "All persons that on earth do dwell." A state is an organized political community considered in its corporate capacity as "a body politic and corporate;" as, a legislative act is the act of the state; every citizen is entitled to the protection of the state. — from people
A nation is an organized political community considered with reference to the persons composing it as having certain definite boundaries, a definite number of citizens, etc. — from people