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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English nacioun, nacion, from Old French nacion, from Latin nātiōnem, accusative of nātiō (“nation”). Displaced native Old English þēod.
Noun
nation (plural nations)
- (collective) A historically constituted, stable community of people, formed based on a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity and/or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.
- Coordinate term: (sometimes synonymous) people
The Roma are a nation without a country.
pre-Columbian nations
- (by extension, informal, often humorous) A community united by some trait (especially an interest) but not historically constituted.
the Dallas Cowboys nation
2016 May 5, Johansson Anna, “5 Marketing Tips for Reaching the DIY Generation”, in Entrepreneur, retrieved 2023-12-21:Did Pinterest create a culture of do-it-yourselfers, or did the DIY nation create Pinterest? The answer may not be certain, but we do know that a lot of customers love to do things on their own.
- (international law, metonymically) A sovereign state; (loosely, metonymically, proscribed) a country.
Though legally single nations, many states comprise several distinct cultural or ethnic groups.
2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […] perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.
- (chiefly historical) An association of students based on the birthplace or ethnicity of its members.
- Synonym: student nation
Once widespread across Europe in medieval times, nations are now largely restricted to the ancient universities of Sweden and Finland.
- (obsolete) A great number; a great deal.
- In North America, an Indigenous people and their federally recognized territory.
The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United States and the second-largest Indian reservation in area.
Usage notes
- (British) Following the establishment of the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, England, Scotland and Wales are normally considered distinct nations. Application of the term nation to the United Kingdom as a whole is deprecated in most style guides, including the BBC, most newspapers and in UK Government publications. Northern Ireland, being of less clear legal status, generally remains a province.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
sovereign state
- Afrikaans: nasie (af), staat (af)
- Albanian: shtet (sq) m
- Amharic: መንግሥት (mängəśt), ሃገር f (hagär)
- Arabic: دَوْلَة (ar) f (dawla), وَطَن (ar) m (waṭan)
- Armenian: պետություն (hy) (petutʻyun), երկիր (hy) (erkir)
- Azerbaijani: dövlət (az)
- Bashkir: ил (il), дәүләт (dəwlət), дәүләт (dəwlət)
- Belarusian: дзяржа́ва (be) f (dzjaržáva), на́цыя (be) f (nácyja)
- Bengali: রাষ্ট্র (bn) (raśṭro), জাতি (bn) (jati)
- Bikol Central: nasyon
- Bulgarian: държа́ва (bg) f (dǎržáva)
- Burmese: နိုင်ငံ (my) (nuingngam)
- Catalan: estat (ca) m
- Cebuano: nasod
- Chavacano: nacion
- Chichewa: dziko
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: 國家/国家 (gwok3 gaa1)
- Dungan: гуйҗя (guyži͡a)
- Eastern Min: 國家/国家 (guók-gă)
- Hakka: 國家/国家 (koet-kâ)
- Hokkien: 國家/国家 (zh-min-nan) (kok-ka)
- Mandarin: 國家/国家 (zh) (guójiā)
- Northern Min: 國家/国家 (gŏ-gá)
- Wu: 國家/国家 (7koq-cia)
- Crimean Tatar: devlet
- Czech: stát (cs) m
- Danish: stat c
- Dutch: natie (nl) f, staat (nl) m
- Estonian: riik (et)
- Finnish: kansakunta (fi), valtio (fi), kansa (fi)
- French: état (fr) m, État (fr) m, Etat (fr) m
- Galician: estado (gl) m
- Georgian: სახელმწიფო (ka) (saxelmc̣ipo)
- German: Staat (de) m
- Greek: κράτος (el) n (krátos), καθεστώς (el) n (kathestós)
- Hebrew: מדינה \ מְדִינָה (he) f (mediná)
- Hiligaynon: pungsud, nasyon
- Hindi: राज्य (hi) m (rājya), राष्ट्र (hi) m (rāṣṭra), जाति (hi) f (jāti)
- Hungarian: ország (hu), állam (hu)
- Icelandic: ríki (is) n
- Ilocano: nasion
- Indonesian: negara (id)
- Irish: stát m
- Italian: stato (it) m, nazione (it) f
- Japanese: 国家 (ja) (こっか, kokka)
- Kazakh: мемлекет (memleket)
- Khmer: រដ្ឋ (km) (rŏət), ប្រទេស (km) (prɑteih)
- Korean: 국가(國家) (ko) (gukga)
- Kyrgyz: мамлекет (ky) (mamleket)
- Lao: ລັດ (lo) (lat), ຊາດ (lo) (sāt), ປະເທດ (pa thēt)
- Latin: natio (la) f
- Latvian: valsts (lv) f
- Lithuanian: valstybė (lt) f
- Low German:
- German Low German: Staat (nds) m, Stoot (nds) m
- Macedonian: држава f (država)
- Malay: bangsa, negara (ms)
- Manchu: ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ (gurun)
- Mongolian:
- Cyrillic: улс гурэн (uls guren), улс (mn) (uls)
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: stat (no) m
- Nynorsk: stat m
- Old Church Slavonic:
- Cyrillic: землꙗ f (zemlja), страна f (strana)
- Old East Slavic: землꙗ f (zemlja), краина f (kraina)
- Old English: þēod f
- Ottoman Turkish: ایل (il)
- Pa'O: ခမ်းထီ (blk)
- Pashto: دولت (ps) m (dawlát)
- Persian:
- Dari: دَوْلَت (fa) (dawlat)
- Iranian Persian: دُوْلَت (fa) (dowlat)
- Plautdietsch: Launt (nds) n
- Polish: stan (pl) m, nacja (pl) f
- Portuguese: estado (pt) m
- Romanian: stat (ro) n
- Russian: госуда́рство (ru) n (gosudárstvo), держа́ва (ru) f (deržáva)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: др̀жава f
- Roman: dr̀žava (sh) f
- Sinhalese: රාජ්යය (rājyaya), ජාතිය (jātiya)
- Slovak: štát (sk) m
- Slovene: država (sl) f
- Spanish: estado (es) m
- Swedish: stat (sv) c
- Tagalog: bansa (tl), nasyon
- Tajik: давлат (tg) (davlat)
- Tatar: дәүләт (tt) (däwlät)
- Thai: รัฐ (th) (rát), ชาติ (th) (châat), ประเทศ (th) (bprà-têet)
- Tibetan: རྒྱལ་ཁབ (rgyal khab)
- Turkish: devlet (tr)
- Turkmen: döwlet
- Ugaritic: 𐎈𐎆𐎚 (ḥwt)
- Ukrainian: держа́ва (uk) f (deržáva), на́ція (uk) f (nácija)
- Urdu: رِیاسَت f (riyāsat)
- Uyghur: دۆلەت (dölet)
- Uzbek: davlat (uz)
- Vietnamese: nhà nước (vi), quốc gia (vi)
- Yiddish: מדינה f (medine)
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See also
Etymology 2
Probably short for damnation.
Noun
nation
- (rare) Damnation.
Adverb
nation
- (rare, dialectal) Extremely, very.
1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) , London: Chatto & Windus, , →OCLC, page 186:“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I’m nation sorry for you, but you ain’t the only person that’s had troubles like that.”
References
- “Notable and Quotable”, in Merriam Webster Online Newsletter, 2005 November, archived from the original on 14 March 2006.
Anagrams
Danish
Etymology
From Latin nātiō (“birth, people”), derived from the verb nāscor (“to be born”).
Pronunciation
Noun
nation c (singular definite nationen, plural indefinite nationer)
- a nation, a people with a common identity, united in history, culture or language
- a nation, a country that is a politically independent unity
Declension
References
French
Etymology
Inherited from Middle French nation, from Old French nacion, borrowed from Latin nātiōnem.
Pronunciation
Noun
nation f (plural nations)
- nation
Derived terms
References
Anagrams
Middle French
Etymology
From Old French nacion.
Noun
nation f (plural nations)
- nation
Descendants
Swedish
Pronunciation
Noun
nation c
- a nation, a country, a state
- a nation, a people
tala till nationen- address the nation
- a union or fraternity of students from the same province
Declension
Related terms
References