Colonies
Britishplural noun
-
the subject territories formerly in the British Empire
-
history the 13 states forming the original United States of America when they declared their independence (1776). These were Connecticut, North and South Carolina, Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and New Jersey
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Colonies may ignore the bait or abandon it before it spreads widely.
From Science Daily • Apr. 18, 2026
“We need to remember that the 13 Colonies and the 13 states created the federal government,” he said on Fox News in 2024, in an interview about the border.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 17, 2026
Wall panels remind us of the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act and the Boston Massacre, all seminal events that led the Colonies to eventually break away from Britain.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025
By the late 1770s, the Revolution in what is known as the Middle Colonies had become a brutal civil war.
From Salon • Sep. 16, 2025
Most of the investors were in absentia, gentlemen from Philadelphia or the southern Colonies who corresponded regularly with Mr. Sharpe, but who never saw our Novanglian academy.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
