From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Nation \Na"tion\, noun [F. nation, L. natio nation, race, orig., a being born, fr. natus, p. p. of nasci, to be born, for gnatus, gnasci, from the same root as E. kin. [root]44. See {Kin} kindred, and cf. {Cognate}, {Natal}, {Native}.]
1. (Ethnol.) A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock.
All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. --Rev. vii. 9.
2. The body of inhabitants of a country, united under an independent government of their own.
A nation is the unity of a people. --Coleridge.
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. --F. S. Key.
3. Family; lineage. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
4. (a) One of the divisions of university students in a classification according to nativity, formerly common in Europe. (b) (Scotch Universities) One of the four divisions (named from the parts of Scotland) in which students were classified according to their nativity.
5. A great number; a great deal; -- by way of emphasis; as, a nation of herbs. --Sterne.
{Five nations}. See under {Five}.
{Law of nations}. See {International law}, under {International}, and {Law}.
Syn: people; race. See {People}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: 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}, {country}, {land}, {commonwealth}, {res publica}, {body politic}]
2: 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" [syn: {land}, {country}, {a people}]
3: a federation of tribes (especially native American tribes); "the Shawnee nation"
4: United States prohibitionist who raided saloons and destroyed bottles of liquor with a hatchet (1846-1911) [syn: {Carry Nation}, {Carry Amelia Moore Nation}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
118 Moby Thesaurus words for "nation": Everyman, John Doe, Public, ally, animal kingdom, archduchy, archdukedom, blood, body politic, breed, brood, buffer state, captive nation, chieftaincy, chieftainry, citizenry, city-state, clan, class, colony, common man, commonweal, commonwealth, community, community at large, constituency, country, county, cultural community, culture, deme, domain, dominion, duchy, dukedom, dwellers, earldom, empery, empire, estate, ethnic group, everybody, everyman, everyone, everywoman, family, folk, folks, free city, general public, gens, gentry, grand duchy, habitancy, house, inhabitants, kind, kingdom, land, line, lineage, linguistic community, mandant, mandate, mandated territory, mandatee, mandatory, matriclan, men, nationality, order, patriclan, people, people at large, people in general, persons, phratry, phyle, plant kingdom, polis, polity, populace, population, possession, power, principality, principate, protectorate, province, public, puppet government, puppet regime, race, realm, republic, satellite, seneschalty, sept, settlement, society, sovereign nation, species, speech community, state, stem, stirps, stock, strain, sultanate, superpower, territory, toparchia, toparchy, totem, tribe, whole people, world, you and me
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