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]