commonwealth (
http://definr.com/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,
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] [ant:
autocracy]