Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A condition or mode of being, as with regard to circumstances.
- noun A condition of being in a stage or form, as of structure, growth, or development.
- noun A mental or emotional condition.
- noun Informal A condition of excitement or distress.
- noun Social position or rank.
- noun Physics The condition of a physical system with regard to phase, form, composition, or structure.
- noun Ceremony; pomp.
- noun The supreme public power within a sovereign political entity.
- noun The sphere of supreme civil power within a given polity.
- noun A specific kind of government.
- noun A body politic, especially one constituting a nation.
- noun One of the more or less internally autonomous territorial and political units composing a federation under a sovereign government.
- adjective Of or relating to a body politic or to an internally autonomous territorial or political unit constituting a federation under one government.
- adjective Owned and operated by a state.
- transitive verb To set forth in words; declare.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Stately.
- noun In biology: Figuratively, a community of colonial organisms, such as a hive of bees. A state, in which the bond of union is not organic but social, is contrasted by Haeckel with a cormus or cormidium, such as a siphonophore, in which the bond of union is organic.
- noun An aggregation of cells which exhibits centralization, interdependence, divergent specialization, and division of labor.
- To set; fix; settle; establish; stablish: as, to
state a day: chiefly used in the past participle. - To settle as a possession upon; bestow or settle upon.
- To express the particulars of; set down in detail or in gross; represent fully in words; make known specifically; explain particularly; narrate; recite: as, to
state an opinion; to state the particulars of a case. - In law, to aver or allege.
- Synonyms Speak, Tell, etc. (see
say ), specify, set forth. - noun Mode or form of existence; position; posture; situation; condition: as, the state of one's health; the state of the roads; a state of uncertainty or of excitement; the present unsatisfactory state of affaire.
- noun Political or social position or status; station; standing in the world or the community; rank; condition; quality.
- noun A class or order: same as
estate , 9. - noun Style of living; mode of life; especially, the dignity and pomp befitting a person of high degree or large wealth.
- noun Stateliness; dignity.
- noun A person of high rank; a noble; a personage of distinction.
- noun A seat of dignity; a dais; a chair of state, usually on a raised platform, with or without a canopy; also, this canopy itself.
- noun The crisis, or culminating point, as of a disease; that point in the growth or course of a thing at which decline begins.
- noun Continuance of existence; stability.
- noun Estate; income; possession.
- noun The whole people of one body politic; the commonwealth: usually with the definite article; in a particular sense, a civil and self-governing community; a commonwealth.
- noun The power wielded by the government of a country; the civil power, often as contrasted with the ecclesiastical: as, the union of church and state.
- noun One of the commonwealths or bodies politic which together make up a federal republic, which stand in certain specified relations with the central or national government, and as regards internal affairs are more or less independent.
- noun plural [capitalized] The legislative body in the island of Jersey.
- noun A statement; a document containing a statement, or showing the state or condition of something at a given time; an account (or the like) stated.
- noun In engraving, an impression taken from an engraved plate in some particular stage of its progress, recognized by certain distinctive marks not seen on previous impressions or on any made subsequently unless coupled with fresh details. There may be seven, eight, or more states from one plate.
- noun In botany, a form or phase of a particular plant.
- noun The United States of America: as, he has sailed from Liverpool for the States.
- noun Synonyms and See
situation . - Of or pertaining to the community or body politic; public: as, state affairs; state policy; a state paper.
- Used on or intended for occasions of great pomp or ceremony: as, a state carriage.
- Of or pertaining to one of the commonwealths which make up a federal republic: opposed to national: as, state rights; a state prison; state legislatures.
- A newspaper selected, by or pursuant to law, for the publication of official or legal notices.
- A prison maintained by a State for the regular confinement of felons under sentence to imprisonment: distinguished from county and city jails, in which are confined misdemeanants, and felons awaiting trial, or awaiting execution of the death penalty, and from reformatories, etc.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective obsolete Stately.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word state.
Examples
-
Instead, the initial law that the state sought to enforce against interstate commerce must itself be an externally valid exercise of the state¡¦s police power.
The Volokh Conspiracy » WINE WARS, PART 7–WEBB-KENYON ACT: 2004
-
Thus, state laws first had to be a valid substantive exercise of the state¡¦s police power before it was incorporated into Webb-Kenyon and could be applied to interstate shipments of liquor.
The Volokh Conspiracy » WINE WARS, PART 7–WEBB-KENYON ACT: 2004
-
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: And it also gave me the opportunity, as secretary of state, to thank him and to thank the Canadian people and the Canadian government, especially the prime minister for all the solid support that Canada has given to the United States in the days since the 11th of September.
-
* Thus, in "The state was made, under the pretence of serving it, in reality the prize of their contention to each of these opposite parties," it is unpleasantly doubtful whether the writer means (1) _state_ or (2) _parties_ to be emphatic.
How to Write Clearly Rules and Exercises on English Composition Edwin A. Abbott
-
It may seem a paradox that the same colour should be at once so durable and so fugitive, but we may briefly explain it by saying _when vitreous pigments are reduced to that extreme state of division which the palette requires, they lose the properties they possess in a less finely divided state_.
Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists George Field
-
There is also a printer to the state, or _state printer_, whose business it is to print the journal, bills, reports, and other papers and documents of the two houses of the legislature, and all the laws passed at each session.
-
In bestowing the sovereignty on the King of Prussia, care was taken that he should confirm all the doubtful privileges of the people; for it is a fundamental maxim of this little state, "_that the sovereignty resides not in the person of the prince, but in the state_".
A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium Richard Boyle Bernard
-
Pharaoh's counsellor_, under all the circumstances, proves him a friend to absolute slavery, as a form of government better adapted to the state of the world at that time, than the one which existed in Egypt; for certain it is, that he peaceably effected a change in the fundamental law, by which a _state, condition, or relation_, between Pharaoh and the
Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject E. N. [Editor] Elliott
-
Every state in history was or is a _state of classes_, a polity of superior and inferior social groups, based upon distinctions either of rank or of property.
Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926
-
You would write _State of New York_ in a legal document in which the state would be considered as a corporate person, but in ordinary references it would be _state of New York_.
reesetee commented on the word state
In the rare/antique book trade: a copy of an edition that has been slightly changed textually. Sometimes used interchangeably with issue, although the latter usually refers to a copy in which one or more misprints have been corrected.
February 22, 2007
yarb commented on the word state
The fifth emotional state (outlined by Kübler-Ross) is that of DEPRESSION...
- Peter Reading, C, 1984
July 23, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word state
"16. In engraving, an impression taken from an engraved plate in some particular stage of its progress, recognized by certain distinctive marks not seen on previous impressions or on any made subsequently unless coupled with fresh details. There may be seven, eight, or more states from one plate." --Cent. Dict.
September 13, 2011
hernesheir commented on the word state
First upstate, then downstate, and now outstate.
November 3, 2011