COLONIAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does colonial mean? 

• COLONIAL (noun)
  The noun COLONIAL has 1 sense:

1. a resident of a colony

  Familiarity information: COLONIAL used as a noun is very rare.

• COLONIAL (adjective)
  The adjective COLONIAL has 3 senses:

1. of or relating to or characteristic of or inhabiting a colony

2. of animals who live in colonies, such as ants

3. composed of many distinct individuals united to form a whole or colony

  Familiarity information: COLONIAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLONIAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A resident of a colony

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("colonial" is a kind of...):

occupant; occupier; resident (someone who lives at a particular place for a prolonged period or who was born there)

Holonyms ("colonial" is a member of...):

colony; settlement (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

Derivation:

colonial (of or relating to or characteristic of or inhabiting a colony)

• COLONIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to or characteristic of or inhabiting a colony

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

Derivation:

colonial (a resident of a colony)

colony (a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government)

colony (a geographical area politically controlled by a distant country)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of animals who live in colonies, such as ants

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

colony (a group of organisms of the same type living or growing together)

Derivation:

colony (a group of organisms of the same type living or growing together)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Composed of many distinct individuals united to form a whole or colony

Synonyms:

colonial; compound

Context example:

coral is a colonial organism

Similar:

complex (complicated in structure; consisting of interconnected parts)

Domain category:

zoological science; zoology (the branch of biology that studies animals)

 Context examples 

We prospered, we travelled, we came back as rich colonials to England, and we bought country estates.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Labour, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)