An archaic or dialectal term for a citizen, especially a townsperson or urban resident (variant or shortened form of civee).
From Old French cive/civé, from Latin civis meaning 'citizen.' Related to civic, civil, and civilization. The term appears in medieval and early modern texts but became obsolete.
Cive is a word that died—once it meant a particular social rank (urban citizen, distinct from peasants), but as all people became more mobile and less tied to one place, the social meaning disappeared and the word faded with it.
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