nation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.
2. n. The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out.
3. n. The government of a sovereign state.
4. n. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: "Historically the Ukrainians are an ancient nation which has persisted and survived through terrible calamity” ( Robert Conquest).
5. n. A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
6. n. The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In a broad sense, a race of people; an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, and speaking the same language or cognate languages.
2. n. In a narrower sense, a political society composed of a sovereign or government and subjects or citizens, and constituting a political unit; an organized community inhabiting a certain extent of territory, within which its sovereignty is exercised.
3. n. Hence A tribe, community, or congregation, whether of men or animals.
4. n. A division of students for voting purposes, according to their place of birth, as in the universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow, and formerly in that of Paris.
5. n. Race; species; family; lineage.
6. n. A great number; a multitude.
7. n. Synonyms and Race, etc. See people.
8. Very; extremely; by a vast deal: as, nation mean; nation pa'tie'lar.

Wiktionary

1. n. Damnation.
2. adv. Extremely; very
3. n. A historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity and/or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture
4. n. law (international law) A sovereign state.
5. n. an association of students based on their birthplace or ethnicity syn.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Ethnol.) A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock.
2. n. The body of inhabitants of a country, united under an independent government of their own.
3. n. obsolete Family; lineage.
4. n. One of the divisions of university students in a classification according to nativity, formerly common in Europe.
5. n. (Scotch Universities) One of the four divisions (named from the parts of Scotland) in which students were classified according to their nativity.
6. n. A great number; a great deal; -- by way of emphasis.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the people who live in a nation or country
2. n. United States prohibitionist who raided saloons and destroyed bottles of liquor with a hatchet (1846-1911)
3. n. a federation of tribes (especially Native American tribes)
4. n. a politically organized body of people under a single government