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• colony
  colony

  noun

  a country or territory claimed and forcibly taken control of by a foreign power which sends its own people to settle there.
• Colony
  Colony

  noun

  The, a city in NE Texas.

colony

¹ American  

[kol-uh-nee] / ˈkɒl ə ni /

noun

• colonies
  plural

1. 

   a country or territory claimed and forcibly taken control of by a foreign power which sends its own people to settle there.

   Many African nations are former European colonies.

2. a group of people who leave their native country to form a settlement in a territory that their own government has claimed and forcibly taken control of.

   The Spanish colony in Mexico was numerous, powerful, and rich.

3. any people or territory separated from but subject to a ruling power.

4. the Colonies, the British territories that formed the original 13 states of the United States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

5. a number of people coming from the same country or speaking the same language, residing in a foreign country or city or in a particular section of it; enclave.

   There is a sizable Polish colony in Israel.

6. 1. any group of individuals having similar interests, occupations, etc., usually living in a particular locality; community.

      After college she joined a colony of artists in Florence.

   2. the district, quarter, or dwellings inhabited by such a group.

      The Greek island is now an artists' colony.

   Synonyms:

   band, body

7. Microbiology. a collection or mass of bacteria growing together as the descendants of a single cell.

8. Ecology. a group of organisms of the same kind living or growing in close association.

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Colony ² American  

[kol-uh-nee] / ˈkɒl ə ni /

noun

1. The, a city in NE Texas.

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colony British  

/ ˈkɒlənɪ /

noun

1. a body of people who settle in a country distant from their homeland but maintain ties with it

2. the community formed by such settlers

3. a subject territory occupied by a settlement from the ruling state

4. 1. a community of people who form a national, racial, or cultural minority

      an artists' colony

      the American colony in London

   2. the area itself

5. zoology

   1. a group of the same type of animal or plant living or growing together, esp in large numbers

   2. an interconnected group of polyps of a colonial organism

6. bacteriol a group of bacteria, fungi, etc, derived from one or a few spores, esp when grown on a culture medium

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colony Scientific  

/ kŏl′ə-nē /

1. A group of the same kind of animals, plants, or one-celled organisms living or growing together. Organisms live in colonies for their mutual benefit, and especially their protection. Multicellular organisms may have evolved out of colonies of unicellular organisms.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• semicolony
  noun
• subcolony
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• colonies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of colony

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English colonie, from Middle French or directly from Latin colōnia, from colōn(us) colonus + -ia -y ³

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Explanation

A colony is a group of people who settle in a new place but keep ties to their homeland. The people who founded the United States first came to America to live as part of a British colony. Colony comes from the Latin colonia, meaning "settled land, farm." Colony can also mean "a group of people who've gathered to live near each other and share the same interest." An artists' colony would be a place where everyone's an artist, while a Dunkin' Donuts colony would be full of coffee lovers. The same rules apply to the animal kingdom — an ant colony has a shared interest in ruining your picnic.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

colony Colony colonies

But the team is hopeful the colony can bounce back when they return from Africa in spring, with plans to improve the site and further protect the birds under way.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

A politician named Adolf Hitler Uunona attracted similar attention in 2020 after winning local elections in Namibia - a former German colony where Adolf and other Germanic first names are not uncommon.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

The setup implies that Carrie—intellectually curious, a clandestine book reader, a guileless innocent for whom Ms. Howell makes us ache—is being liberated from Margaret’s fundamentalist penal colony.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

Western Sahara, a mineral-rich former Spanish colony, has been largely controlled by Morocco since 1975, but the United Nations considers it a non-self-governing territory.

From Barron's ● Sep. 25, 2026

The history of slavery in the Dutch colony of Surinam was a long and brutal one.

From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman

Located just over an hour away from his Malibu Colony retreat, the funky dwelling, which is set on 5.7 acres, has a total of five bedrooms and five bathrooms.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

Around 1607, settlers in the nearby Popham Colony constructed a wooden sailboat, dubbed Virginia—the first oceangoing boat built by English settlers in North America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

Mr. Johnston is the author of “The Colony of Unrequited Dreams” and “Jennie’s Boy.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026

Two months later, Colony Capital bought the defaulted loan for $22.5 million.

From MarketWatch ● May 5, 2026

I head now for the Virginia Colony in the company of my quondam charge, the Negro boy Octavian—in which country, he avoweth, he shall rise in arms against the vile practice of slavery.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

Britain’s North American colonies united to become Canada in 1867 partly to resist the pull of economic gravity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Most of the world was now divided by fixed borders into independent states and their colonies, and international respect for those borders was growing.

From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2026

Trees occupied by wasps also consistently had much smaller ant colonies.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026

Canada was formed as a collection of British North American colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown when the colonies in the modern-day US rebelled.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

They live in colonies where they forage and feed, chatter and fight all day long.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

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