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Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically it has sometimes been synonymous with “republic”. The noun “commonwealth”, meaning “public welfare general good or advantage” dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth or the common weal – echoed in the modern synonym “public weal”) it comes from the old meaning of “wealth”, which is “well-being”, and is itself a loose translation of the Latin res publica (republic). The term literally meant “common well-being”. In the 17th century, the definition of “commonwealth” expanded from its original sense of “public welfare” or “commonweal” to mean “a state in which the supreme power is vested in the people; a republic or democratic state”.
The term evolved to become a title to a number of political entities. Three countries – Australia, the Bahamas, and Dominica – have the official title “Commonwealth”, as do four U.S. states and two U.S. territories. Since the early 20th century, the term has been used to name some fraternal associations of nations, most notably the Commonwealth of Nations, an organization primarily of former territories of the British Empire, which is often referred to as simply “the Commonwealth”.
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Commonwealth (noun)
The well-being of a community.
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Commonwealth (noun)
The entirety of a (secular) society, a polity, a state.
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Commonwealth (noun)
Republic. Often capitalized, as Commonwealth.
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State (noun)
A condition; a set of circumstances applying at any given time.
“a state of being;”
“a state of emergency”
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State (noun)
A complete description of a system, consisting of parameters that determine all properties of the system.
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State (noun)
The stable condition of a processor during a particular clock cycle.
“In the fetch state, the address of the next instruction is placed on the address bus.”
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State (noun)
The set of all parameters relevant to a computation.
“The state here includes a set containing all names seen so far.”
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State (noun)
The values of all parameters at some point in a computation.
“A debugger can show the state of a program at any breakpoint.”
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State (noun)
The physical property of matter as solid, liquid, gas or plasma.
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State (noun)
High social standing or circumstance.
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State (noun)
Highest and stationary condition, as that of maturity between growth and decline, or as that of crisis between the increase and the abating of a disease; height; acme.
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State (noun)
Pomp, ceremony, or dignity.
“The President’s body will lie in state at the Capitol.”
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State (noun)
Rank; condition; quality.
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State (noun)
Condition of prosperity or grandeur; wealthy or prosperous circumstances; social importance.
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State (noun)
A chair with a canopy above it, often standing on a dais; a seat of dignity; also, the canopy itself.
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State (noun)
A great person, a dignitary; a lord or prince.
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State (noun)
A polity.
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State (noun)
Estate, possession.
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State (noun)
Any sovereign polity; a national or city-state government.
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State (noun)
A political division of a federation retaining a notable degree of autonomy, as in the United States or Germany; any province.
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State (noun)
A form of government other than a monarchy.
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State (noun)
An element of the range of the random variables that define a random process.
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State (verb)
To declare to be a fact.
“He stated that he was willing to help.”
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State (verb)
To make known.
“State your intentions.”
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State (adjective)
stately
“36|The ſhepheardes ſwayne you cannot well ken, / But it be by his pride, from other men: / They looken bigge as Bulles, that bene bate, / And bearen the cragge ſo ſtiffe and ſo ſtate, / As Cocke on his dunghill, crowing cranck.”