Meaning: a society is a group of people in continuing interaction, occupying a territory, sharing a culture, and possessing institutions that outlive individual members.
Classic statements: MacIver — society is a web of social relationships (the relationships, not the people, are the society); Tönnies' contrast of Gemeinschaft (community: kinship, neighbourhood, intimate, status-based) with Gesellschaft (association: contract, impersonality, self-interest) — the conceptual map for Nepal's village-to-city transition.
Characteristics (the checklist answer): population; territory; interaction networks; shared culture; permanence across generations; self-sufficiency (a society can reproduce itself; a mere group cannot).
Distinguish (short-question favourite):
• Society (the whole web) vs community (a territorially-bounded, face-to-face group: a tol, a gaun) vs association (an organised group with a specific purpose: a bar association, a guthi, a cooperative).
Nepali society in one paragraph (use in every essay): multi-ethnic and multilingual (over 120 languages; 125 caste/ethnic groups counted in 2011); religiously plural though Hindu-majority (roughly four-fifths Hindu, with Buddhist, Muslim, Kirat, Christian and other communities); hierarchically ordered by the historical caste system; dominantly rural in livelihood though rapidly urbanising; and mid-way through one of the fastest social transformations in South Asia (migration, education, federalism — Unit 7).