For me the word denizen has always been associated with low life, gambling dens, slums … I guess that must just reflect its usage in the kind of ‘literature’ I enjoyed in my youth. Definitely a word to avoid using about anybody unless you wished to offend.
So I was surprised to come across two recent examples of utmost respectability. One was simply an alternative to citizen. The OED confirms this usage, & even tells me that denizen has (had?) a place in the law of Great Britain, meaning an alien admitted to citizenship by royal letters patent, but incapable of inheriting, or holding any public office.
The other came in a report of the discovery of a gold mine denizen – in this case a worm. The OED covers this meaning too: An inhabitant, indweller, occupant (of a place, region, etc.). Used of persons, animals, and plants: chiefly poetic or rhetorical.
But Halicephalobus mephisto lives 9,000 feet below the surface of the earth, so low life of a kind, after all.
Image courtesy of University Ghent, Belgium
Added July 8:
Kai von Fintel, a professor of linguistics at MIT & a newcomer to Language Log introduced himself as ‘a part-time denizen of the academic Dark Side, as Associate Dean of MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.’
