commonwealth
       n 1: the official name of some states in the United States
            (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and
            Kentucky) and associated territories (Puerto Rico)
       2: a politically organized body of people under a single
          government; "the state has elected a new president";
          "African nations"; "students who had come to the nation's
          capitol"; "the country's largest manufacturer"; "an
          industrialized land" [syn: state, nation, country, land,
           res publica, body politic]
       3: a world organization of autonomous states that are united in
          allegiance to a central power but are not subordinate to
          it or to one another
       4: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body
          of citizens who can elect people to represent them [syn: democracy,
           republic] [ant: autocracy]