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Definition of "colony" []

  • A group of emigrants or their descendants who settle in a distant territory but remain subject to or closely associated with the parent country. (noun)
  • A territory thus settled. (noun)
  • A region politically controlled by a distant country; a dependency. (noun)
  • A group of people with the same interests or ethnic origin concentrated in a particular area: the American colony in Paris. (noun)
  • The area occupied by such a group. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "colony" in a sentence
  • "The term colony comes from the Latin word colonus, meaning farmer."
  • "This colony is about twenty feet high and spans a length of 100 feet and is probably hundreds of years old."
  • "It's what they call a colony, that's to say, a good number of people of all sorts, besides convicts, goes out there, and they've a governor set over them, who rules the land just like any king."