Union - Definition

adj 1: being of or having to do with the northern United States
and those loyal to the Union during the American Civil
War; "Union soldiers"; "Federal forces"; "a Federal
infantryman" [syn: Union, Federal]
2: of trade unions; "the union movement"; "union negotiations";
"a union-shop clause in the contract" [ant: nonunion]
n 1: an organization of employees formed to bargain with the
employer; "you have to join the union in order to get a
job" [syn: union, labor union, trade union, trades
union, brotherhood]
2: the United States (especially the northern states during the
American Civil War); "he has visited every state in the
Union"; "Lee hoped to detach Maryland from the Union"; "the
North's superior resources turned the scale" [syn: Union,
North]
3: the act of pairing a male and female for reproductive
purposes; "the casual couplings of adolescents"; "the mating
of some species occurs only in the spring" [syn: coupling,
mating, pairing, conjugation, union, sexual union]
4: the state of being joined or united or linked; "there is
strength in union" [syn: union, unification] [ant:
separation]
5: the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for
life (or until divorce); "a long and happy marriage"; "God
bless this union" [syn: marriage, matrimony, union,
spousal relationship, wedlock]
6: healing process involving the growing together of the edges
of a wound or the growing together of broken bones [syn:
union, conglutination]
7: a political unit formed from previously independent people or
organizations; "the Soviet Union"
8: a set containing all and only the members of two or more
given sets; "let C be the union of the sets A and B" [syn:
union, sum, join]
9: the occurrence of a uniting of separate parts; "lightning
produced an unusual union of the metals"
10: a device on a national flag emblematic of the union of two
or more sovereignties (typically in the upper inner corner)
11: the act of making or becoming a single unit; "the union of
opposing factions"; "he looked forward to the unification of
his family for the holidays" [syn: union, unification,
uniting, conjugation, jointure] [ant: disunion]