noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A person whose social status is an early approximation to the later idea of a citizen.

   "[…] the transformation of Jewish serfs into permanent cultivators of national land as protocitizens."

Example

More examples

"[…] the transformation of Jewish serfs into permanent cultivators of national land as protocitizens."

Etymology

From proto- + citizen.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.