Commonwealth - Definition
commonwealth
n 1: the official name of some states in the United States
(Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Kentucky)
and associated territories (Puerto Rico)
2: a politically organized body of people under a single
government; "the state has elected a new president"; "African
nations"; "students who had come to the nation's capitol";
"the country's largest manufacturer"; "an industrialized
land" [syn: state, nation, country, land,
commonwealth, res publica, body politic]
3: a world organization of autonomous states that are united in
allegiance to a central power but are not subordinate to it
or to one another
4: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body
of citizens who can elect people to represent them [syn:
democracy, republic, commonwealth]