colonial

[kuh-loh-nee-uhl]

adjective

1. of, concerning, or pertaining to a colony or colonies.

   the colonial policies of France.

2. of, concerning, or pertaining to colonialism; colonialistic.

3. (often initial capital letter),  pertaining to the 13 British colonies that became the United States of America, or to their period.

4. Ecology.,  forming a colony.

5. (initial capital letter)

   1. noting or pertaining to the styles of architecture, ornament, and furnishings of the British colonies in America in the 17th and 18th centuries, mainly adapted to local materials and demands from prevailing English styles.

   2. noting or pertaining to various imitations of the work of American colonial artisans.

noun

1. an inhabitant of a colony.

2. a house in or imitative of the Colonial style.

colonial

/ kəˈləʊnɪəl /

adjective

1. of, characteristic of, relating to, possessing, or inhabiting a colony or colonies

2. (often capital) characteristic of or relating to the 13 British colonies that became the United States of America (1776)

3. (often capital) of or relating to the colonies of the British Empire

4. denoting, relating to, or having the style of Neoclassical architecture used in the British colonies in America in the 17th and 18th centuries

5. of or relating to the period of Australian history before Federation (1901)

6. (of organisms such as corals and bryozoans) existing as a colony of polyps

7. (of animals and plants) having become established in a community in a new environment

noun

1. a native of a colony

Other Word Forms

• colonially adverb
• noncolonial adjective
• noncolonially adverb
• procolonial adjective
• semicolonial adjective
• semicolonially adverb
• uncolonial adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of colonial¹

An Americanism dating back to 1770–80; colony + -al ¹

Example Sentences

By his teens, Muivah was already a Naga nationalist, singing "God Bless My Nagaland" at school and questioning why his people lived in "humiliation" under the colonial government.

Read more on BBC

For the first time, I could picture the legendary tropical city of Malayan sampans, Chinese street hawkers and British colonial languor.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The Thai-Cambodia conflict flared over a smattering of border temples, contested because of a vague territorial demarcation made by Cambodia's French colonial administrators in 1907.

Read more on Barron's

It has held on to those links even as neighbouring Sahel countries, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, came under control of juntas rejecting and shunning the former colonial power.

Read more on Barron's

The nation’s multilayered historical background has been variously stamped by a basic Arabic heritage, ineradicable remnants of protracted Ottoman Turkish rule and the long arm of the British colonial empire.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal