colony

Reading level: medium

Estimated CEFR level: B1 — Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government
  2. noun a group of organisms of the same type living or growing together
  3. noun one of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States

Etymology

From Middle English colane, colonye, from Latin colōnia (“colony”), from colōnus (“farmer; colonist”), from colō (“till, cultivate, worship”), from earlier *quelō, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”). Doublet of Cologne, Colonia, and Köln.

In classic literature

Synonyms

settlement

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