Colonies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Areas of land or settlements under the control of a foreign power ; groups of animals, plants, or microorganisms living in close association
2. Regions governed by an external country for political or economic purposes ; collections of living beings clustered closely for mutual benefit or protection
3. Places settled or ruled by another country often geographically separated ; assemblies of organisms living collectively as a single community

Etymology: The Latin "colonia" was originally a practical word, meaning a settlement of farmers planted in conquered territory. It came from "colonus", a farmer or cultivator, and that word grew from "colere", "to till, cultivate, worship". So the idea of settlement is rooted in the act of working the land, and the same Latin verb also gave us "cult" and "culture". The word reached English through Middle English "colane" and "colonye", and it kept that agricultural sense of a group sent out to settle new ground. Its second meaning, a community of organisms living together as one unit, arrived later, borrowed from the same sense of a settled group living in a shared place. Biologists applied it to bacteria, coral, ants and bees, which form collective units rather than solitary individuals. The word is a doublet of "Cologne", which descends from the Latin name "Colonia Agrippinensis", the Roman colony founded on the Rhine. Both trace back to the same Latin root, so a German city and the English word for overseas settlements share an ancestor.

Synonyms: settlements, outposts, dependencies, provinces, territories

Antonyms: independence, sovereignty, autonomy, self-governance, freedom