United States

American  

[yoo-nahy-tid steyts] / juˈnaɪ tɪd ˈsteɪts /

noun

(used with a singular verb)

1. Official Name United States of America.  a federal republic in the northern Western Hemisphere comprising 48 contiguous states, the District of Columbia, Alaska in North America, and Hawaii in the North Pacific, and in some contexts considered along with its five inhabited island territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, North Mariana Islands,American Samoa ). Conterminous United States, 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,465 square kilometers); with Alaska and Hawaii, 3,796,742 square miles (9,833,517 square kilometers); all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the island territories, 3,805,927 square miles (9,857,306 square kilometers) Washington, D.C. U.S., US

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Other Word Forms

• anti–United States
  adjective
• pro–United States
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of United States

First recorded in 1600–10, in reference to the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and in 1770–80 for the United States of America ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

United States

It confirmed last year that it had received about $5.1 million from the United States to accept 160 deportees.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

From February 2022 until they were arrested on Monday, Love and Chan solicited money from women in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho through lies and misrepresentations, according to the United States Attorney’s Office in Portland.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

Linus Pauling was a chemist from the United States who won two Nobel Prizes.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

For the next 90 days, he said, the United States would allow as much as 300,000 metric tons of imported product for ground beef to enter the country without the usual out-of-quota tariff.

From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026

Nearly seventy thousand were American citizens; many were from families who had lived in the United States for several generations.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly