Definition of "union" []

• The act of uniting or the state of being united. (noun)
• A combination so formed, especially an alliance or confederation of people, parties, or political entities for mutual interest or benefit. (noun)
• Mathematics A set, every member of which is an element of one or another of two or more given sets. (noun)
• Agreement or harmony resulting from the uniting of individuals; concord. (noun)
• The state of matrimony; marriage: "The element that was to make possible such a union was trust in each other's love” ( Kate Chopin). (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.

• "In the face of the defiant position of the Anjouanese in favour of the dismemberment of the Union of the Comores, the OAU had no alternative but to authorise a variety of measures that would compel them back into the union."
• "The first President Bush used “sound and strong” in 1990, combining Nixon-Carter with Reagan, but the following year departed from tradition to use the word union in a sense that illuminated his “thousand points of light”: “The state of our Union is the union of each of us, one to the other—the sum of our friendships, marriages, families and communities.”"
• "The fact is, the compromise alluded to, instead of effecting a union, rendered it impracticable; unless by the term union are to understand the absolute reign of the slaveholding power over the whole country, to the prostration of Northern rights."