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COMMONWEALTH
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A politically organized body of people under a single government
Example:
an industrialized land
Synonyms:
body politic; commonwealth; country; land; nation; res publica; state
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("commonwealth" is a kind of...):
political entity; political unit (a unit with political responsibilities)
Meronyms (parts of "commonwealth"):
estate; estate of the realm; the three estates (a major social class or order of persons regarded collectively as part of the body politic of the country (especially in the United Kingdom) and formerly possessing distinct political rights)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "commonwealth"):
commonwealth country (any of the countries in the British Commonwealth)
developing country (a country that is poor and whose citizens are mostly agricultural workers but that wants to become more advanced socially and economically)
Dominion (one of the self-governing nations in the British Commonwealth)
foreign country (any state of which one is not a citizen)
Reich (the German state)
renegade state; rogue nation; rogue state (a state that does not respect other states in its international actions)
suzerain (a state exercising a degree of dominion over a dependent state especially in its foreign affairs)
sea power (a nation that possesses formidable naval strength)
great power; major power; power; superpower; world power (a state powerful enough to influence events throughout the world)
city-state; city state (a state consisting of a sovereign city)
ally (a friendly nation)
Instance hyponyms:
Eelam; Tamil Eelam (the independent state that the Tamil Tigers have fought for)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them
Synonyms:
commonwealth; democracy; republic
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("commonwealth" is a kind of...):
form of government; political system (the members of a social organization who are in power)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "commonwealth"):
Weimar Republic (the German republic founded at Weimar in 1919)
parliamentary democracy (a democracy having a parliament)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A world organization of autonomous states that are united in allegiance to a central power but are not subordinate to it or to one another
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("commonwealth" is a kind of...):
global organization; international organisation; international organization; world organisation; world organization (an international alliance involving many different countries)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "commonwealth"):
British Commonwealth; Commonwealth of Nations (an association of nations consisting of the United Kingdom and several former British colonies that are now sovereign states but still pay allegiance to the British Crown)
Sense 4
Meaning:
The official name of some states in the United States (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Kentucky) and associated territories (Puerto Rico)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("commonwealth" is a kind of...):
province; state (the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation)
Instance hyponyms:
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; Porto Rico; PR; Puerto Rico (a self-governing commonwealth associated with the United States occupying the island of Puerto Rico)
