SETTLEMENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does settlement mean? 

• SETTLEMENT (noun)
  The noun SETTLEMENT has 7 senses:

1. 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

2. a community of people smaller than a town

3. a conclusive resolution of a matter and disposition of it

4. the act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies

5. something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making

6. an area where a group of families live together

7. termination of a business operation by using its assets to discharge its liabilities

  Familiarity information: SETTLEMENT used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SETTLEMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

colony; settlement

Context example:

the American colony in Paris

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

body (a group of persons associated by some common tie or occupation and regarded as an entity)

Meronyms (members of "settlement"):

colonial (a resident of a colony)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

frontier settlement; outpost (a settlement on the frontier of civilization)

Plantation (a newly established colony (especially in the colonization of North America))

proprietary colony (a colony given to a proprietor to govern (in 17th century))

Instance hyponyms:

Demerara (a former Dutch colony in South America; now a part of Guyana)

Calpe; Gibraltar; Rock of Gibraltar (location of a colony of the United Kingdom on a limestone promontory at the southern tip of Spain; strategically important because it can control the entrance of ships into the Mediterranean; one of the Pillars of Hercules)

Plymouth Colony (colony formed by the Pilgrims when they arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620; it was absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691)

New Amsterdam (a settlement established by the Dutch near the mouth of Hudson River and the southern end of Manhattan Island; annexed by the English in 1664 and renamed New York)

Derivation:

settle (take up residence and become established)

settle (form a community)

settle (establish or develop as a residence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A community of people smaller than a town

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

settlement; small town; village

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

community (a group of people living in a particular local area)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

moshav (a cooperative Israeli village or settlement comprised of small farms)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A conclusive resolution of a matter and disposition of it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

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

agreement; understanding (the statement (oral or written) of an exchange of promises)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

accommodation (a settlement of differences)

conclusion (a final settlement)

out-of-court settlement (resolution of a dispute prior to the rendering of a final decision by the trial court)

property settlement ((matrimonial law) the division of property owned or acquired by marriage partners during their marriage)

accord and satisfaction (the settlement of a debt by paying less than the amount demanded in exchange for extinguishing the debt)

Derivation:

settle (bring to an end; settle conclusively)

settle (settle conclusively; come to terms)

settle (end a legal dispute by arriving at a settlement)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The act of colonizing; the establishment of colonies

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

colonisation; colonization; settlement

Context example:

the British colonization of America

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

constitution; establishment; formation; organisation; organization (the act of forming or establishing something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

population (the act of populating (causing to live in a place))

Derivation:

settle (take up residence and become established)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

closure; resolution; settlement

Context example:

he needed to grieve before he could achieve a sense of closure

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

deciding; decision making (the cognitive process of reaching a decision)

Derivation:

settle (end a legal dispute by arriving at a settlement)

Sense 6

Meaning:

An area where a group of families live together

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

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

geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

hamlet; village (a settlement smaller than a town)

Derivation:

settle (take up residence and become established)

settle (form a community)

settle (establish or develop as a residence)

Sense 7

Meaning:

Termination of a business operation by using its assets to discharge its liabilities

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

liquidation; settlement

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

conclusion; ending; termination (the act of ending something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "settlement"):

viatical settlement; viaticus settlement (sale of an insurance policy by a terminally ill policy holder)

Derivation:

settle (accept despite lack of complete satisfaction)

settle (dispose of; make a financial settlement)

 Context examples 

The people you are talking to want to know your compensation requirements, and those talks will soon reach a settlement, beginning in earnest on the peach of a new moon of February 23.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Courtship, love, presents, jointures, settlements have no place in their thoughts, or terms whereby to express them in their language.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The colony took root, and by the mid-12th century there were two major settlements with a population of thousands.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

That social-settlement woman is no more than a sociological poll-parrot.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Tell me, Aylward, said Alleyne earnestly, with his hands outstretched to keep the pair asunder, what is the cause of quarrel, that we may see whether honorable settlement may not be arrived at?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Supplying or being a final or conclusive settlement or result.

(Definitive, NCI Thesaurus)

It raises concern over increased vulnerability of coastal settlements in the populated, low- to middle- income tropical countries to extreme weather events.

(Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas, SciDev.Net)

However, if both the population and price of walrus started to tumble, it must have badly undermined the resilience of the settlements, says co-author Dr Bastiaan Star of the University of Oslo.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

The nearest settlement to Area 51 is Rachel in Lincoln County.

(Millions don't turn up to 'storm' US airbase for extraterrestrial evidence, Wikinews)

Scientists used ancient DNA analyses and carbon-14 dating to demonstrate the past existence of a unique population of Icelandic walrus that went extinct shortly after Norse settlement some 1,100 years ago.

(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)