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commonwealth

com·mon·wealth

UK/ˈkɒmənˌwɛlθ/ US/ˈkɒmənˌwelθ/ fairly common uk

noun

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

  • “the state has elected a new president”
  • “African nations”
  • “students who had come to the nation”
  • “;”
  • “s largest manufacturer”
  • “an industrialized land”
Synonyms
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

Synonyms
Antonyms

Origin

From common (“public”) + wealth (“well-being”). From c. 1450 as common wele (commonweal). In the form common-wealth (common welthe) from c. 1520, used by Tyndale in the sense "secular society" in particular, for which other authors preferred publike weal. Also from the 1520s treated as a synonym or loan-translation of res publica (republic) (Rollison 2017:67f).

Phrases

  • Commonwealth Caribbean
  • Commonwealth of Australia
  • Commonwealth of Kentucky
  • Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  • Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
  • Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
  • Commonwealth of the Bahamas
  • Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
  • Commonwealth of Virginia
  • New Commonwealth

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Part of

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.