Definitions for nation
ˈneɪ ʃənna·tion

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:3.5 / 2 votes

1. state, nation, country, land, commonwealth, res publica, body politicnoun

   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"

2. nation, land, countrynoun

   the people who live in a nation or country

   "a statement that sums up the nation's mood"; "the news was announced to the nation"; "the whole country worshipped him"

3. Nation, Carry Nation, Carry Amelia Moore Nationnoun

   United States prohibitionist who raided saloons and destroyed bottles of liquor with a hatchet (1846-1911)

4. nationnoun

   a federation of tribes (especially Native American tribes)

   "the Shawnee nation"

Samuel Johnson's DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. NATIONnoun

   A people distinguished from another people; generally by their language, original, or government.

   Etymology: nation, Fr. natio, Latin.

   If Edward III. had prospered in his French wars, and peopled with English the towns which he won, as he began at Calais driving out the French, his successors holding the same course, would have filled all France with our nation. Ral.

   A nation properly signifies a great number of families derived from the same blood, born in the same country, and living under the same government. William Temple.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Nation

   A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those features. Some nations are equated with ethnic groups (see ethnic nationalism) and some are equated with affiliation to a social and political constitution (see civic nationalism and multiculturalism). A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. A nation has also been defined as a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity and particular interests.The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed and historically contingent. Throughout history, people have had an attachment to their kin group and traditions, territorial authorities and their homeland, but nationalism – the belief that state and nation should align as a nation state – did not become a prominent ideology until the end of the 18th century. There are three notable perspectives on how nations developed. Primordialism (perennialism), which reflects popular conceptions of nationalism but has largely fallen out of favour among academics, proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon. Ethnosymbolism explains nationalism as a dynamic, evolving phenomenon and stresses the importance of symbols, myths and traditions in the development of nations and nationalism. Modernization theory, which has superseded primordialism as the dominant explanation of nationalism, adopts a constructivist approach and proposes that nationalism emerged due to processes of modernization, such as industrialization, urbanization, and mass education, which made national consciousness possible.Proponents of modernization theory describe nations as "imagined communities", a term coined by Benedict Anderson. A nation is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections and that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences themselves as subjectively part of an embodied unity with others. For the most part, members of a nation remain strangers to each other and will likely never meet. Nationalism is consequently seen an "invented tradition" in which shared sentiment provides a form of collective identity and binds individuals together in political solidarity. A nation's foundational "story" may be built around a combination of ethnic attributes, values and principles, and may be closely connected to narratives of belonging.

ChatGPTRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. nation

   A nation is a large group of people who share common cultural, ethnic, or historical ties, often living within a specific geographical territory. This group usually shares a common language, traditions, history, or values. In some cases, it's referred to as a sovereign political entity also known as a country or state. However, it's important to note that in this definition, a nation doesn't necessarily correlate with a specific political boundary or government, as there can be nations without states and nations that span multiple states.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:3.8 / 4 votes

1. Nationnoun

   a part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock

2. Nationnoun

   the body of inhabitants of a country, united under an independent government of their own

3. Nationnoun

   family; lineage

4. Nationnoun

   one of the divisions of university students in a classification according to nativity, formerly common in Europe

5. Nationnoun

   one of the four divisions (named from the parts of Scotland) in which students were classified according to their nativity

6. Nationnoun

   a great number; a great deal; -- by way of emphasis; as, a nation of herbs

FreebaseRate this definition:4.3 / 14 votes

1. Nation

   Nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up; that is, a nation state. The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians. Nation carries varying meanings, and the connotation of the term has changed over time. The idea of a nation is a social reality that we have used to organize history. As Benedict Anderson argues in his book Imagined Communities, the nation is an imagined political community. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Furthermore, it is a community because regardless of the actual inequality or exploitation that may exist in it, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. This is not to say that the concept is false, rather it was simply imaged and created by humans, and it is not something that necessarily exists in nature.

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:2.0 / 2 votes

1. Nation

   nā′shun, n. a body of people born of the same stock: the people inhabiting the same country, or under the same government: a race: a great number: a division of students in a university for voting purposes at Aberdeen and Glasgow. [Fr.,—L. nation-em,—nasci, natus, to be born.]

Editors ContributionRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. nation

   A group of people with a unity government and unity governmental structure and legislation.

   The nation agreed on a national unity government.

   
   

   Submitted by MaryC on March 3, 2020  

Suggested ResourcesRate this definition:4.0 / 1 vote

1. nation

   The nation symbol -- In this Symbols.com article you will learn about the meaning of the nation symbol and its characteristic.

Etymology and OriginsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Nation

   An Americanism for “damnation.”

Surnames Frequency by Census RecordsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. NATION

   According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Nation is ranked #4940 in terms of the most common surnames in America.
   
   The Nation surname appeared 7,125 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 2 would have the surname Nation.
   
   79.1% or 5,639 total occurrences were White.
   13.2% or 941 total occurrences were Black.
   2.4% or 171 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
   2.3% or 164 total occurrences were of two or more races.
   1.5% or 110 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.
   1.4% or 100 total occurrences were Asian.

Matched Categories

1. • Confederation
   • Dry
   • People
   • Political Unit

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'nation' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2338

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'nation' in Written Corpus Frequency: #3511

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'nation' in Nouns Frequency: #562

Anagrams for nation »

1. anoint

How to pronounce nation?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say nation in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of nation in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of nation in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1

Examples of nation in a Sentence

1. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

   Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against freedom of print, it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another.

2. Adam Smith:

   To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation that is governed by shopkeepers.

3. Woodrow Wilson:

   The nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort; yes, than the nation's life itself.

4. Dan Gainor:

   China’s content control means companies in a free nation are ceding control to a government that has no belief in those freedoms. Look at the remake of ‘Red Dawn.’ The villains were changed from Chinese to North Koreans because China wasn’t happy, somehow a nation of 25 million invades a nation of 320 million – all to appease Communist Party idiots in Beijing. China is using its markets to buy propaganda into the U.S.

5. Jimmy Carter:

   There are attributes of a superpower that go beyond military strength, our nation should be known as a champion of peace. Our nation should be known as a champion of equality. Our nation should be known as a champion of human rights. We should also be admired for our generosity to other people in need and other moral values.

Popularity rank by frequency of use