Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The form of government of a nation, state, church, or organization.
- n. An organized society, such as a nation, having a specific form of government: "His alien philosophy found no roots in the American polity” ( New York Times).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Government; form, system, or method of government: as, civil polity; ecclesiastical polity.
- n. Any body of persons forming a community governed according to a recognized system of government.
- n. Policy; art; management; scheme.
- n. Synonyms See policy.
Wiktionary
- n. An organizational structure of the government of a state, church, etc.
- n. A politically organized unit; a state.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The form or constitution of the civil government of a nation or state; the framework or organization by which the various departments of government are combined into a systematic whole.
- n. Hence: The form or constitution by which any institution is organized; the recognized principles which lie at the foundation of any human institution.
- n. obsolete Policy; art; management.
WordNet 3.0
- n. shrewd or crafty management of public affairs
- n. the form of government of a social organization
- n. a politically organized unit
Etymologies
- From French politie, from Latin politia, from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeia, "polity, policy, the state"); see policy. (Wiktionary)
- Obsolete French politie, from Old French, from Late Latin polītīa, the Roman government; see police. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The polity is likewise that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the chief difference being the provision for a general convention as a constitutional lawmaking body, to be called only when there is under consideration a change in polity or name.”
“Now he is desirous to have his whole plan of government neither a democracy nor an oligarchy, but something between both, which he calls a polity, for it is to be composed of men-at-arms.”
“Since Baptists are congregational in polity you never quite know what to expect from one church to another”
“His Luddite attitudes were and are not very consequential in most Indian discussions because the polity is more concerned today with rent-seeking than with issues arising from the impact of Machinery.”
Foreign Aid and Growth, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Our polity is predicated on an educated electorate.”
“In fact, the use Lady Liberty, as a way of expressing both political identity but also commitment to the polity, is a powerful motif thats repeated again and again across the United States in the 19th century.”
“My vision of a successful modern polity is something more akin to Orange County.”
Matthew Yglesias » Europe: A Continent Full of Lovely Countries
“The very nature of our polity is based on balancing various sectional interests (Dairy = Wisconsin, California, New England and upstate N. York, etc.) against others.”
Matthew Yglesias » School Lunch Or; How to Make Government Work
“Some say its special polity comes from the huge reservoirs that collect the water in Upstate New York.”
“I would classify it as too liberal as its social polity is libertine (pro-gay, pro-abortion, etc.).”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Public Opinion About the Supreme Court
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘polity’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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RELI - Christian doctrines
mass, infallibility, inerrancy, communicable attr..., incommunicable at..., fortuitous incarn..., atonement, hypostatic union, mystical union, spirit-baptism, sanctification, indwelling and 90 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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Faves
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1401 more...
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srboisvert's Words
couverture, poffertjes, naif, endermatic, prepense, aspic, otalgia, curettage,, florid, piffling, pillock, mow and 164 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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P
pearlescent, perfidy, periphrasis, peristalsis, peristyle, phonestheme, phosphene, pleonasm, plump for, portmanteau, prelapsarian, prolix and 52 more...
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Interesting/mellifluous/delicious
insouciant, expiate, apotheosis, insidious, teacup, homunculus, porcine, perestroika, milquetoast, unputdownable, paroxysm, agitprop and 65 more...
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look it up, son.
a list of words i had to recently look up in the dictionary either for general definition or clarification purposes.
paucity, jeremiad, polity, commensurate, pandit, anachronism, abject, turgid, ferrous, sangfroid, caveat, pundit and 14 more...
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Balsamic's Words
vignette, itinerant, maladies, hagiographic, dour, ethereal, credence, solemnity, provenance, vestigial, dissonance, melancholia and 221 more...
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Nouns
harbinger, onus, analect, poaching, floe, backlash, profligacy, munificence, wellsprings, dissimulation, race baiting, precursor and 34 more...
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Academic Terms
heuristic, hegemony, monolithic, nomothetic, phenomenology, habitus, ontology, praxis, hermeneutics, liminal, agency, dialectic and 29 more...
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rostam
shahnameh, paragon, writ, constrain, kingmaker, tangential, simorgh, angha, mazanderan, mehrab, zahhak, feraydun and 56 more...
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difficult-list36
philistine, philology, phlegmatic, physiognomy, piebald, piecemeal, pied, piety, pillory, pinion, piquant, pique and 27 more...
Tweets
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