Note: A word of various significations in English, law; as, a manor; a tithing; a town; a township; a parish; a part of a parish; a village. The original meaning of vill, in England, seems to have been derived from the Roman sense of the term villa, a single country residence or farm; a manor. Later, the term was applied only to a collection of houses more than two, and hence came to comprehend towns. Burrill. The statute of Exeter, 14 Edward I., mentions entire- vills, demivills, and hamlets.
VILLA
Vil"la, n.; pl. Villas. Etym: [L. villa, LL. also village, dim. of L.
vicus a village: cf. It. & F. villa. See Vicinity, and cf. Vill,
Village, Villain.]
Defn: A country seat; a country or suburban residence of some pretensions to elegance. Dryden. Cowper.
VILLAGE Vil"lage (; 48), n. Etym: [F., fr. L. villaticus belonging to a country house or villa. See Villa, and cf. Villatic.]
Defn: 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. 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.
VILLAGER
Vil"la*ger, n.
Defn: An inhabitant of a village.
Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard condition. Shak.
VILLAGERY
Vil"lage*ry, n.
Defn: Villages; a district of villages. [Obs.] "The maidens of the villagery." Shak.