| Noun | 1. | colony - 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 Synonyms: settlement |
| 2. | colony - a group of animals of the same type living together | |
| 3. | Colony - one of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States | |
| 4. | colony - a geographical area politically controlled by a distant country Synonyms: dependency | |
| 5. | colony - (microbiology) a group of organisms grown from a single parent cell |
COLONY. A union of citizens or subjects who have left their country to people another, and remain subject to the mother country. 3 W. C. C. R. 287. The country occupied by the colonists is also called a colony. A colony differs from a possession, or a dependency. (q.v.) For a history of the American colonies, the reader is referred to Story on the Constitution, book I.; 1 Kent, Com. 77 to 80; 1 Dane's Ab. Index, b. t.
adverse possession, ally, alodium, archduchy, archdukedom, army, ashram, body, body politic, buffer state, bunch, burgage, captive nation, caste, chieftaincy, chieftainry, city-state, claim, clan, class, commonweal, commonwealth, commune, community, country, county, de facto, de jure, dependency, derivative title, domain, dominion, drift, drive, drove, duchy, dukedom, earldom, economic class, empery, empire, endogamous group, extended family, family, fee fief, fee position, fee simple, fee simple absolute, fee simple conditional, fee simple defeasible, fee simple determinable, fee tail, feodum, feud, fiefdom, flock, frankalmoign, free city, free socage, freehold, gam, gang, gavelkind, gens, grand duchy, having title to, herd, hold, holding, host, kennel, kingdom, kinship group, knight service, land, lay fee, lease, leasehold, legal claim, legal possession, litter, mandant, mandate, mandated territory, mandatee, mandatory, moiety, nation, nationality, nuclear family, occupancy, occupation, order, original title, owning, pack, phratria, phratry, phyle, pod, polis, polity, possessing, possession, power, preoccupancy, preoccupation, prepossession, prescription, pride, principality, principate, property, property rights, proprietary rights, protectorate, province, puppet government, puppet regime, realm, republic, satellite, school, seisin, seneschalty, settlement, shoal, skulk, sloth, socage, social class, society, sovereign nation, squatting, state, subcaste, sublease, sultanate, superpower, tenancy, tenantry, tenure, tenure in chivalry, territory, title, toparchia, toparchy, totem, trip, troop, underlease, undertenancy, usucapion, villein socage, villeinhold, villenage