Town

Town - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

TOWN, n.

1. Originally, a walled or fortified place; a collection of houses inclosed with walls, hedges or pickets for safety. Rahab's house was on the town wall. Josh 2.

A town that hath gates and bars. 1 Sam 23.

2. Any collection of houses, larger than a village. In this use the word is very indefinite, and a town may consist of twenty houses, or of twenty thousand.

3. In England, any number of houses to which belongs a regular market, and which is not a city or the see of a bishop.

A town, in modern times, is generally without walls, which is the circumstance that usually distinguishes it from a city.

In the United States, the circumstance that distinguishes a town from a city, is generally that a city is incorporated with special privileges, and a town is not. But a city is often called a town.

4. The inhabitants of a town. The town voted to send two representatives to the legislature, or they voted to lay a tax for repairing the highways.

5. In popular usage, in America, a township; the whole territory within certain limits.

6. In England,the court end of London.

7. The inhabitants of the metropolis.

8. The metropolis. The gentleman lives in town in winter; in summer he lives in the country. The same form of expression is used in regard to other populous towns.

TOWN'-CLERK, n. [town and clerk.] An officer who keeps the records of a town, and enters all its official proceedings.

toun: This word is used to represent a number of different Hob terms in the Old Testament.

(1) When any explanatory word or attendant circumstances show that a "city" was unwalled, and sometimes in the contrary case (1Sa 23:7), the Hebrew `ir is translated "town" by the King James Version, and the Revised Version (British and American) generally agrees with it (De 3:5; 1Sa 27:5; Es 9:19).

(2) Both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) translate chawwoth by "towns" (Nu 32:41; Jos 13:30; 1Ki 4:13; 1Ch 2:23), while chatserim and perazoth both appear in the King James Version as "towns," but in the Revised Version (British and American) as "villages" (Ge 25:16; Zec 2:4). See HAVVOTH-JAIR.

(3) Bath, literally, "daughter," is sometimes found in the plural between the name of a city and chatserim, "villages," as in Jos 15:45 margin, "Ekron, with its daughters and its villages." "Towns" is evidently the appropriate translation, and, even without chatserim, bath is rendered "town" (the Revised Version (British and American) Nu 21:25, etc.). The same use of "daughter" occurs also in the Greek of 1 Macc 5:65 (thugater), the King James Version "town," the Revised Version (British and American) "village," margin "daughter."

(4) the King James Version and the English Revised Version gloss qir, "wall" in Jos 2:15 by rendering it "town wall"; the American Standard Revised Version omits.

(5) The Greek term komopoleis (Mr 1:38), being a combination of the words for "village" and "city," is a clear attempt to describe something between the two, and is well translated "town." (6) the King James Version uses "town" (Mt 10:11 etc.) and "village" (Mt 9:35, etc.) quite indifferently for kome; the Revised Version (British and American) has "village" throughout. For similar changes of the King James Version "town" compare 2 Macc 8:6 (chora); 11:5; 12:21 (chorion, the Revised Version (British and American) "place").

See CITY; VILLAGE.

W. M. Christie