settlement
noun
Simple meaning
A community of people smaller than a town.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehtuhlmuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛtəlmənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A community of people smaller than a town
A community of people living together, such as a hamlet, village, town, or city; a populated place.
A colony that is newly established; a place or region newly settled.
The state of being settled.
The act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies
The act of settling.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A community of people smaller than a town
Used this way, settlement is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use settlement
- “They finally reached a settlement with the union.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A person who settles in a new colony or moves into new country.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A center in an underprivileged area that provides community services.
Resolution of a dispute prior to the rendering of a final decision by the trial court.
The division of property owned or acquired by marriage partners during their marriage.
Cash derived from sale of an insurance policy by a terminally ill policy holder.
A settlement on the frontier of civilization.
Sale of an insurance policy by a terminally ill policy holder.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: community of people smaller than a town
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.