in common

1. 1.

   of joint or shared interest

   “we have several things in common”

   “when an audience is responding to a play they are identifying what they have in common with the human beings on stage”
2. 2.

   in joint use or possession

   “mites are arachnids, but they have a lot in common with insects”

   “property held in common”

Questions about in common

What does in common mean?

in common means "of joint or shared interest". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is in common a common word?

in common is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.