- inhabitant
- inhabitant, denizen, resident, citizen are comparable when meaning one whose home or dwelling place is in a definite location.Inhabitant, the least specific word, implies nothing more than an abode in a given place{
in 1940 the city had 243,718 inhabitants
}{certain disagreeable inhabitants of open impounded water supplies, known as algae— Morrison
}Denizen denotes one that belongs by birth or naturalization to a given locality{denizens of the deep
}{winged denizens of the crag— Scott
}{as if the old denizens of the forest had been felled with an axe— Maury
}Even when substituted in literary use for inhabitant, denizen retains something of its own flavor of belonging to the locality by birth or naturalization{jaded and oversophisticated denizens of towns— Lowes
}Resident is not always clearly distinguished from inhabitant, especially when a town or city, as distinguished from a state or country, is in question. Often the term implies nothing more than tenancy of a room, an apartment, a house, or a locality for a considerable length of time{the summer residents of Bar Harbor
}Often, in the case of a person who has several residences or who lives mainly in a place other than the one regarded as his home, the term suggests not permanent inhabitancy but legal recognition of one of these places as his domicile, and as the seat of his fundamental legal rights (as of voting) and responsibilities (as of paying income tax){proof that the multimillionaire was a resident of Massachusetts brought several million dollars in inheritance taxes to that state
}{are the students at this college considered residents of the town and entitled to vote in town matters?
}In reference to a country, resident is more usual than inhabitant as a designation of an alien living in that country for a time and regarded as subject to certain taxes{an alien actually present in the United States who is not a mere transient or sojourner is a resident of the United States for purposes of the income tax—Income Tax Regulations, U.S.
}Citizen when denoting a person that is an inhabitant is rarely wholly free from its political sense (see CITIZEN 2); hence, it usually carries some suggestion of membership in, as distinct from mere presence in, a community and of possession of the privileges and obligations inherent in such membership. It is particularly applicable to an adult and substantial resident of a city or town{no mere pedant, but a leading citizen of the town, serving as justice of the peace and as its first postmaster— Starr
}{the body of citizens or those who were members of the city and entitled to take part in its political life— Sabine
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.