Annexion

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of formally adding land or territory to a country involves integrating that region into a larger political framework
2. This concept refers to the act of incorporating a specific area into an existing state or political organization
3. The act of incorporating territory into a state typically involves legal processes that integrate the newly acquired land into the political and administrative framework of the nation

Etymology: "Annexion" is an older spelling of "annexation," and its history runs through Latin verbs of attaching and joining. The Latin "annectere" combined "ad," meaning "to," with "nectere," meaning "to tie or bind," so the original sense was something like binding one thing onto another. Late Latin turned that action into the noun "annexiō," and English borrowed the idea through Middle English. The word's core meaning has stayed close to that physical image. Where "annexation" now dominates, "annexion" describes the act of attaching a smaller thing to a larger one, and in political use it means a state or power adding territory to its own. The shift from tying two objects together to seizing land is a straightforward extension of the same idea of joining one thing to another.

Synonyms: annexation, attachment