nation
1 Americannoun
-
a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own.
The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.
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the territory or country itself.
the nations of Central America.
- Synonyms:
- realm, kingdom, commonwealth, state
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a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.
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an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.
noun
noun
-
an aggregation of people or peoples of one or more cultures, races, etc, organized into a single state
the Australian nation
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a community of persons not constituting a state but bound by common descent, language, history, etc
the French-Canadian nation
-
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a federation of tribes, esp American Indians
-
the territory occupied by such a federation
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Related Words
See race 2.
Other Word Forms
- internation adjective
- minination noun
- nationhood noun
- nationless adjective
- supernation noun
Etymology
Origin of nation
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin nātiōn- (stem of nātiō ) “birth, tribe,” equivalent to nāt(us) (past participle of nāscī “to be born”) + -iōn- -ion
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.
But as Rubio said, cowboy lineage can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula — as far back as the late medieval era, before Spain as a nation even existed.
From Los Angeles Times
Although the nation is in danger, it is a different sort from the ones we face daily and, which, being stranger than fiction, have no place here.
From Los Angeles Times
The civil rights activist and organizer, who died on Feb. 17, 2026, helped pave the way for Barack Obama’s election a generation later as the nation’s first – and so far only – African American president.
From Salon
The euro gained against the dollar as details on how the new tariffs will be imposed, and whether trade deals signed between the U.S. and tariff-hit nations will hold, remained unclear.
The U.S. announced new global tariffs after the nation’s Supreme Court ruled that the earlier broad based tariffs were unconstitutional.
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.
