Editing Town (section)

== Etymology ==
The word "town" shares an origin with the German word {{lang|de|Zaun}}, the Dutch word {{lang|nl|tuin}}, and the [[Old Norse]] {{lang|non|tún}}.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/town|title=Town|publisher=Dictionary.com}}</ref> The original [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] word, *''tūnan'', is thought to be an early borrowing from [[Proto-Celtic language|Proto-Celtic]] *''dūnom'' (cf. [[Old Irish]] {{lang|sga|dún}}, Welsh {{lang|cy|din}}).<ref name="Town">{{cite web|url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/town|title=Town|publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary}}</ref>

The original sense of the word in both Germanic and Celtic was that of a fortress or an enclosure. Cognates of ''town'' in many modern Germanic languages designate a fence or a hedge.<ref name="Town"/> In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed, and through which a track must run.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and built a [[palisade]] or stockade instead.{{CN|date=April 2025}} In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them (like the garden of the palace of [[Het Loo Palace|Het Loo]] in [[Apeldoorn]], which was the model for the privy garden of [[William III of England|William III]] and [[Mary II of England|Mary II]] at [[Hampton Court]]). In Old Norse {{lang|non|tún}} means a (grassy) place between farmhouses, and the word is still used with a similar meaning in modern Norwegian.

Old English {{lang|ang|tūn}} became a common place-name suffix in England and southeastern Scotland during the Anglo-Saxon settlement period. In [[Old English]] and Early and Middle [[Scots language|Scots]], the words ''ton'', ''toun'', etc. could refer to diverse kinds of settlements from agricultural estates and holdings, partly picking up the Norse sense (as in the Scots word {{lang|sco|[[fermtoun]]}}) at one end of the scale, to fortified municipalities.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Town {{!}} Definition, Examples, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/town |access-date=23 May 2023 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Other common Anglo-Saxon suffixes included ''ham'' 'home', ''stede'' 'stead', and ''burh'' 'bury, borough, burgh'.

In [[toponymic]] terminology, names of individual towns and cities are called ''astyonyms'' or ''astionyms'' (from [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|ἄστυ}} 'town, city', and {{lang|grc|ὄνομα}} 'name').{{sfn|Room|1996|p=13}}