Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A condition or mode of being, as with regard to circumstances.
  • noun A condition of being in a stage or form, as of structure, growth, or development.
  • noun A mental or emotional condition.
  • noun Informal A condition of excitement or distress.
  • noun Social position or rank.
  • noun Physics The condition of a physical system with regard to phase, form, composition, or structure.
  • noun Ceremony; pomp.
  • noun The supreme public power within a sovereign political entity.
  • noun The sphere of supreme civil power within a given polity.
  • noun A specific kind of government.
  • noun A body politic, especially one constituting a nation.
  • noun One of the more or less internally autonomous territorial and political units composing a federation under a sovereign government.
  • adjective Of or relating to a body politic or to an internally autonomous territorial or political unit constituting a federation under one government.
  • adjective Owned and operated by a state.
  • transitive verb To set forth in words; declare.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In biology: Figuratively, a community of colonial organisms, such as a hive of bees. A state, in which the bond of union is not organic but social, is contrasted by Haeckel with a cormus or cormidium, such as a siphonophore, in which the bond of union is organic.
  • noun An aggregation of cells which exhibits centralization, interdependence, divergent specialization, and division of labor.
  • noun Mode or form of existence; position; posture; situation; condition: as, the state of one's health; the state of the roads; a state of uncertainty or of excitement; the present unsatisfactory state of affaire.
  • noun Political or social position or status; station; standing in the world or the community; rank; condition; quality.
  • noun A class or order: same as estate, 9.
  • noun Style of living; mode of life; especially, the dignity and pomp befitting a person of high degree or large wealth.
  • noun Stateliness; dignity.
  • noun A person of high rank; a noble; a personage of distinction.
  • noun A seat of dignity; a dais; a chair of state, usually on a raised platform, with or without a canopy; also, this canopy itself.
  • noun The crisis, or culminating point, as of a disease; that point in the growth or course of a thing at which decline begins.
  • noun Continuance of existence; stability.
  • noun Estate; income; possession.
  • noun The whole people of one body politic; the commonwealth: usually with the definite article; in a particular sense, a civil and self-governing community; a commonwealth.
  • noun The power wielded by the government of a country; the civil power, often as contrasted with the ecclesiastical: as, the union of church and state.
  • noun One of the commonwealths or bodies politic which together make up a federal republic, which stand in certain specified relations with the central or national government, and as regards internal affairs are more or less independent.
  • noun plural [capitalized] The legislative body in the island of Jersey.
  • noun A statement; a document containing a statement, or showing the state or condition of something at a given time; an account (or the like) stated.
  • noun In engraving, an impression taken from an engraved plate in some particular stage of its progress, recognized by certain distinctive marks not seen on previous impressions or on any made subsequently unless coupled with fresh details. There may be seven, eight, or more states from one plate.
  • noun In botany, a form or phase of a particular plant.
  • noun The United States of America: as, he has sailed from Liverpool for the States.
  • noun Synonyms and See situation.
  • Of or pertaining to the community or body politic; public: as, state affairs; state policy; a state paper.
  • Used on or intended for occasions of great pomp or ceremony: as, a state carriage.
  • Of or pertaining to one of the commonwealths which make up a federal republic: opposed to national: as, state rights; a state prison; state legislatures.
  • A newspaper selected, by or pursuant to law, for the publication of official or legal notices.
  • A prison maintained by a State for the regular confinement of felons under sentence to imprisonment: distinguished from county and city jails, in which are confined misdemeanants, and felons awaiting trial, or awaiting execution of the death penalty, and from reformatories, etc.
  • To set; fix; settle; establish; stablish: as, to state a day: chiefly used in the past participle.
  • To settle as a possession upon; bestow or settle upon.
  • To express the particulars of; set down in detail or in gross; represent fully in words; make known specifically; explain particularly; narrate; recite: as, to state an opinion; to state the particulars of a case.
  • In law, to aver or allege.
  • Synonyms Speak, Tell, etc. (see say), specify, set forth.
  • Stately.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb rare To set; to settle; to establish.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French estat, from Latin status; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin status ("manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses"), from stare ("to stand").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word state.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • In the rare/antique book trade: a copy of an edition that has been slightly changed textually. Sometimes used interchangeably with issue, although the latter usually refers to a copy in which one or more misprints have been corrected.

    February 22, 2007

  • The fifth emotional state (outlined by Kübler-Ross) is that of DEPRESSION...

    - Peter Reading, C, 1984

    July 23, 2008

  • "16. In engraving, an impression taken from an engraved plate in some particular stage of its progress, recognized by certain distinctive marks not seen on previous impressions or on any made subsequently unless coupled with fresh details. There may be seven, eight, or more states from one plate." --Cent. Dict.

    September 13, 2011

  • First upstate, then downstate, and now outstate.

    November 3, 2011