Definition of "national" []

• Of, relating to, or belonging to a nation as an organized whole: a national anthem. (adjective)
• Of or relating to nationality: their national origin. (adjective)
• Characteristic of or peculiar to the people of a nation: a national trait. (adjective)
• Of or maintained by the government of a nation: a national landmark. (adjective)
• Being in the interest of one's own nation: Isolationism is a strictly national policy. (adjective)

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.

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• "It was said that national crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by _national punishments_, and that the continuance of the slave trade, and thus giving it a national character, sanction, and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of him who is equally the Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the poor _African slave_ and his _American master!"
• "“It introduced into the national consciousness, ” Henry James wrote in 1879, by the “national consciousness” undoubtedly meaning his own as well, “a certain sense of proportion and relation, of the world being a more complicated place than it had hitherto seemed, the future more treacherous, success more difficult …"