 5 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
commonwealth
noun
1: the official name of some states in the United States
(Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and
Kentucky) and associated territories (Puerto Rico)
2: 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" [syn: {state}, {nation}, {country}, {land},
{res publica}, {body politic}]
3: a world organization of autonomous states that are united in
allegiance to a central power but are not subordinate to
it or to one another
4: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body
of citizens who can elect people to represent them [syn: {democracy},
{republic}] [ant: {autocracy}]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Commonwealth \Com"mon*wealth'\ (?; 277), noun [Common + wealth
well-being.]
1. A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of
men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form
of government and system of laws.
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary
commonwealth. --Milton.
Note: This term is applied to governments which are
considered as free or popular, but rarely, or
improperly, to an absolute government. The word
signifies, strictly, the common well-being or
happiness; and hence, a form of government in which the
general welfare is regarded rather than the welfare of
any class.
2. The whole body of people in a state; the public.
3. (Eng. Hist.) Specifically, the form of government
established on the death of Charles I., in 1649, which
existed under Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, ending
with the abdication of the latter in 1659.
Syn: State; realm; republic.
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
165 Moby Thesaurus words for "commonwealth":
Everyman, John Doe, Public, absolute monarchy, ally, archduchy,
archdukedom, aristocracy, ashram, autarchy, autocracy, autonomy,
body, body politic, buffer state, captive nation, caste,
chieftaincy, chieftainry, citizenry, city-state, clan, class,
coalition government, colonialism, colony, common man, commonweal,
commune, community, community at large, constituency,
constitutional government, constitutional monarchy, country,
county, cultural community, democracy, dictatorship, domain,
dominion, dominion rule, duarchy, duchy, dukedom, duumvirate,
dwellers, dyarchy, earldom, economic class, empery, empire,
endogamous group, estate, everybody, everyman, everyone,
everywoman, extended family, family, federal government,
federation, feudal system, folk, folks, free city, garrison state,
general public, gens, gentry, gerontocracy, grand duchy, habitancy,
heteronomy, hierarchy, hierocracy, home rule, inhabitants, kingdom,
kinship group, land, limited monarchy, linguistic community,
mandant, mandate, mandated territory, mandatee, mandatory,
martial law, men, meritocracy, militarism, military government,
mob rule, mobocracy, moiety, monarchy, nation, nationality,
neocolonialism, nuclear family, ochlocracy, oligarchy, order,
pantisocracy, patriarchate, patriarchy, people, people at large,
people in general, persons, phratria, phratry, phyle, police state,
polis, polity, populace, population, possession, power,
principality, principate, protectorate, province, public,
puppet government, puppet regime, pure democracy, realm, regency,
representative democracy, representative government, republic,
satellite, self-determination, self-government, seneschalty,
settlement, social class, social democracy, society,
sovereign nation, speech community, state, stratocracy, subcaste,
sultanate, superpower, technocracy, territory, thearchy, theocracy,
toparchia, toparchy, totalitarian government, totalitarian regime,
totem, triarchy, triumvirate, tyranny, welfare state, whole people,
world, you and me
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
COMMONWEALTH, noun An administrative entity operated by an incalculable
multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously
efficient.
This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.
On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,
And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors --
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.
K.Q.
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Commonwealth, VA (CDP, FIPS 18792)
Location: 38.07462 N, 78.48746 W
Population (1990): 5538 (2584 housing units)
Area: 3.1 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
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