# Citizen The word “citizen” comes from the Latin civitas, which means “city,” arriving through the filter of Anglo-Norman French via deinzein, also the root of denizen, somebody who lives in a particular place. In its oldest form, given social structure, being a citizen of a place might not have meant that much more than that you live there. And the word is still used to indicate merely that a person is a legal resident of a particular jurisdiction. However, the word has come to connote something more, not just a passive dweller, but a good citizen, an active citizen. Citizens are typically granted rights by their government and are also burdened with obligations or constraints expressed in laws. #### How is the citizen relevant to the Network State? When we speak of a citizen of the network state, we are using the term with the force of its positive connotations to describe an actively participating member of a political community. A network state would be empty and pointless without citizens. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://gitbook.jur.io/wiki-network-state/dictionary/citizen.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.