COMMONWEALTH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does commonwealth mean? 

• COMMONWEALTH (noun)
  The noun COMMONWEALTH has 4 senses:

1. the official name of some states in the United States (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Kentucky) and associated territories (Puerto Rico)

2. a politically organized body of people under a single government

3. 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

4. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

  Familiarity information: COMMONWEALTH used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMMONWEALTH (noun)

Sense 1

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)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A politically organized body of people under a single government

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

body politic; commonwealth; country; land; nation; res publica; state

Context example:

an industrialized land

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 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:

A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

commonwealth; democracy; republic

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)

 Context examples 

Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, or stampeded through barbed-wire fences to the delight of the commonwealth reading the account at the breakfast table.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She acknowledged it to be very fitting, that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of discourse; and hoped, ere long, to become a not unworthy member of the one she was now transplanted into.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)