nation Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a politically organized body of people under a single government
    commonwealth; land; res publica; country; state; body politic.
    • 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
  2. noun the people who live in a nation or country
    country; land.
    • a statement that sums up the nation's mood
    • the news was announced to the nation
    • the whole country worshipped him
  3. noun United States prohibitionist who raided saloons and destroyed bottles of liquor with a hatchet (1846-1911)
    Carry Amelia Moore Nation; Carry Nation.
  4. noun a federation of tribes (especially Native American tribes)
    • the Shawnee nation

WordNet

Na"tion noun
Etymology
F. nation, L. natio nation, race, orig., a being born, fr. natus, p.p. of nasci, to be born, for gnatus, gnaci, from the same root as E. kin. *44. See Kin kindred, and cf. Cognate, Natal, Native.
Definitions
  1. (Ethnol.) A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock.
    All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. Rev. vii. 9.
  2. The body of inhabitants of a country, united under an independent government of their own.
    A nation is the unity of a people. Coleridge.
    Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. F. S. Key.
  3. Family; lineage. Obs. Chaucer.
  4. (a) One of the divisions of university students in a classification according to nativity, formerly common in Europe. (b) (Scotch Universities) One of the four divisions (named from the parts of Scotland) in which students were classified according to their nativity.
  5. A great number; a great deal; -- by way of emphasis; as, a nation of herbs. Sterne. Syn. -- people; race. See People.

Webster 1913