an aggregation of people or peoples of one or more cultures, races, etc, organized into a single state: the Australian nation a community of persons not constituting a state but bound by common descent, language, history, etc: the French-Canadian nation
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
na•tion /ˈneɪʃən/USA pronunciation
n. [countable]
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- Governmenta body of people, living in a particular territory, that is unified by birth, culture, race, language, or society, and often has its own government.
- Governmentthe territory or country itself.
- Anthropologyan American Indian group or tribe, esp. a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.
na•tion
(nā′shən),USA pronunciation n.
na′tion•hood′, n.
na′tion•less, adj.
Na•tion (nā′shən),USA pronunciation n.
- Governmenta large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own:The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.
- Governmentthe territory or country itself:the nations of Central America.
- Anthropologya member tribe of an American Indian confederation.
- an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.
- Latin nātiōn- (stem of nātiō) birth, tribe, equivalent. to nāt(us) (past participle of nāscī to be born) + -iōn- -ion
- Middle English 1250–1300
na′tion•less, adj.
- 1.See corresponding entry in Unabridged See race 2.
- 2.See corresponding entry in Unabridged state, commonwealth, kingdom, realm.
Na•tion (nā′shən),USA pronunciation n.
- Biographical Carry or Carrie (Amelia Moore), 1846–1911, U.S. temperance leader.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
'the nation' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Black Muslim
- Bureau of Mines
- CCC
- Centers for Disease Control
- Geological Survey
- Interstate Highway System
- Kew
- Pashto
- Port Harcourt
- Unknown Soldier
- Wallace
- acidic
- battleworthy
- blood
- body politic
- boondoggle
- change
- communalism
- compromise
- concentrate
- constrict
- decentralize
- defense
- deprofessionalize
- drive-by
- drug
- ethnocentrism
- fine-tune
- girlhood
- growth
- impact
- importance
- juice
- lead
- leading indicators
- linchpin
- marry
- mine
- misdiagnose
- monument
- nation
- national library
- nationwide
- neoisolationism
- party
- postliminy
- private sector
- provincialism
- public sector
- reaction