Meaning
1. Originally, a walled or fortified place; a collection of houses inclosed with walls, hedges or pickets for safety. Rahab's house was on the town wall. Josh 2.
A town that hath gates and bars. 1 Sam 23.
2. Any collection of houses, larger than a village. In this use the word is very indefinite, and a town may consist of twenty houses, or of twenty thousand.
3. In England, any number of houses to which belongs a regular market, and which is not a city or the See Of a bishop.
A town, in modern times, is generally without walls, which is the circumstance that usually distinguishes it from a city.
In the United States, the circumstance that distinguishes a town from a city, is generally that a city is incorporated with special privileges, and a town is not. but a city is often called a town.
4. The inhabitants of a town. The town voted to send two representatives to the legislature, or they voted to lay a tax for repairing the highways.
5. In popular usage, in America, a township; the whole territory within certain limits.
6. In England,the court end of London.
7. The inhabitants of the metropolis.
8. The metropolis. The gentleman lives in town in winter; in summer he lives in the country. The same form of expression is used in regard to other populous towns.
TOWN'-CLERK, n. [town and clerk.] An officer who keeps the records of a town, and enters all its official proceedings.
