Villa

Villa, vil′a, n. a country residence or seat: a suburban mansion—also Vill.—ns. Vill′adom, villas collectively, people living in them; Vill′āge, any small assemblage of houses, less than a town: (orig.) a number of houses inhabited by persons near the residence of a proprietor or farmer: (law) a manor, a parish or the outlying part of a parish; Vill′age-commū′nity, a clan of settlers who built their huts on a tract of land and laid out common fields which they cultivated in common as one family, the land being divided out every few years into family lots, but the whole continuing to be cultivated by the community subject to the established customs as interpreted in the village-council by the sense of the village elders—the so-called Mark system of Sir Henry Maine; Vill′āger, an inhabitant of a village; Vill′āgery (Shak.), a district of villages; Vill′akin, Villanette′, a little villa.—adj. Villat′ic (Milt.), pertaining to a farm. [O. Fr. ville (Fr. ville)—L. villa, a country-house, prob. reduced from vicla, dim. of vicus, a village; Gr. oikos, a house.]