commonweal

common (“public”) +‎ weal (“well-being”). From c. 1450, common wele was used as a compound. Rollison (2017) thinks that comun and wele may already have been used in collocation in 14th-century Middle English. By the 1520s used by some authors as the equivalent of res publica (republic), alongside commonwealth from about the same time.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌkɒmənˈwiːl/

Noun

commonweal (plural commonweals)

1. (obsolete or archaic) The common good; public wellbeing or prosperity [ quotations ▼]
2. The body politic; republic [ quotations ▼]

Derived terms

• commonwealth