Definition of "commonwealth" []

• The people of a nation or state; the body politic. (noun)
• A nation or state governed by the people; a republic. (noun)
• Used to refer to some U.S. states, namely, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. (noun)
• Used to refer to a self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily associated with the United States, namely, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. (noun)
• The Commonwealth of Nations. (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.

• "They're at home with what I call a commonwealth of being."
• "They occupied what he called the commonwealth cemetery, and lying next to them, with their headstones facing Mecca, were Muslim dead from Libya, Algeria, Sudan and India."
• "The commonwealth is now the fifth largest wine-producing state in the country and the seventh-largest commercial grape producer."