colony
noun
Simple meaning
A body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahluhneeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑləni
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government
A group of people who settle an area and maintain ties to their country of origin.
A geographical area politically controlled by a distant country
A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor from that area.
A group of people with similar interests, occupations, or characteristics, living in a particular area; the area such people occupy.
One of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government
Used this way, colony is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Government/politics
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use colony
- “The American colony in Paris.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
A body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland.
A period during which a government is in power.
A geographic area under control of a single governing entity such as state or municipality.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A water enema given to flush out the colon.
Related to A body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A British colony controlled by the British Crown, represented by a governor.
One of the British colonies that formed the United States.
A penal institution where prisoners are exiled (often located on an island from which escape is difficult or impossible).
Colony formed by the Pilgrims when they arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
A former province of southern South Africa that was settled by the Dutch in 1652 and ceded to Great Britain in 1814.
A colony given to a proprietor to govern (in 17th century).
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- governornoun
- connecticutnoun
- nestnoun
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