Citizen - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CITIZEN (a form corrupted in Eng., apparently by analogy with "denizen," from O. Fr. citeain, mod. Fr. citoyen), etymologically the inhabitant of a city, cite or civitas (see City), and in England the term still used primarily of persons possessing civic rights in a borough; thus used also of a townsman as opposed to a countryman. The more extended use of the word, however, corresponding to civitas, gives "citizen" the meaning of one who is a constituent member of a state in international relations and as such has full national rights and owes a certain allegiance as opposed to an "alien"; in republican countries the term is then commonly employed as the equivalent of "subject" in monarchies of feudal origin. For the rules governing the obtaining of citizenship in this latter sense in the United States and elsewhere see Naturalization.