COMMONLAND

Common land

Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel. Originally in medieval England the common was an integral part of the manor, and was thus legally part of the estate in land owned by the lord of the manor, but over which certain classes of manorial tenants and others held certain rights. By extension, the term "commons" has come to be applied to other resources which a community has rights or access to. The older texts use the word "common" to denote any such right, but more modern ...

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Common land
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

common land

Noun

  1. an area of land in the United Kingdom or Ireland that is open to the public at all times and until the 18th century would have been land that was free for anybody to graze their animals on (often shortened to common).
    The common land up at Chailey's always good for a walk.
  2. collectively, all the common land in one of those two countries.
    I've always grazed my animals on the common land and I'm not going to stop now.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: common land
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

Need help with a clue?
Try your search in the crossword dictionary!