The different species of towns, based on comparative size, were initially also partly based on

the type of church, if any, associated with the dwellings. Many old variations of the these

designators show up as suffixes🔍 in modern place names.     

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A CITY - originally specifically a walled town or town with Cathedral.  Today it's any collection of dwellings + accompany business', religious & public buildings etc. large enough to encompass multiple townships/ districts.

    Old French cite; Latin civitatem = citizenship, later = community of citizens; stem civis = townsman [PIE 🔍 root kei = to lie (root of bed/ couch), 2nd sense = beloved, dear]

    Related - inhabitants of urbs; Latin for city and source of modern urban. 

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A TOWN -  a collection of dwellings with at least one church & it's own local government.

Middle English toun = inhabited place with some degree of local government from Old English/ Germanic tun = fenced settlement/ enclosure 

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A VILLAGE - a collection of dwellings with it's  own church, but no local government.

Old French  vilage = houses & other buildings in a group, from Latin villaticum = farmstead [with outbuildings] - related villa & Old French ville

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A HAMLET - smaller collection of dwellings; with no church (or government)  

Old French hamelet = small village; diminutive (-et) of hamel, itself diminutive (-el) of ham = village - [cognate🔍  Old English HāM = homestead] both from Proto-Germanic haimaz = home (PIE tkei = settle, dwell, be home)

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