REPUBLIC

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does republic mean? 

• REPUBLIC (noun)
  The noun REPUBLIC has 2 senses:

1. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

2. a form of government whose head of state is not a monarch

  Familiarity information: REPUBLIC used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REPUBLIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

commonwealth; democracy; republic

Hypernyms ("republic" is a kind of...):

form of government; political system (the members of a social organization who are in power)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "republic"):

Weimar Republic (the German republic founded at Weimar in 1919)

parliamentary democracy (a democracy having a parliament)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A form of government whose head of state is not a monarch

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Context example:

the head of state in a republic is usually a president

Hypernyms ("republic" is a kind of...):

form of government; political system (the members of a social organization who are in power)

Instance hyponyms:

Roman Republic (the ancient Roman state from 509 BC until Augustus assumed power in 27 BC; was governed by an elected Senate but dissatisfaction with the Senate led to civil wars that culminated in a brief dictatorship by Julius Caesar)

 Context examples 

I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Between ourselves, the recent cases in which I have been of assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia, and to the French republic, have left me in such a position that I could continue to live in the quiet fashion which is most congenial to me, and to concentrate my attention upon my chemical researches.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The volume of Plutarch’s Lives which I possessed contained the histories of the first founders of the ancient republics.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)