Russia

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• A former empire of eastern Europe and northern Asia. From a collection of mostly Slavic principalities dominated by the Tatars, Russia emerged as a unified state centered around Moscow between the 14th and 16th centuries. The empire spread quickly to the east and south, becoming a world power by the 18th century. In the 19th century, Russia experienced a flowering of the arts and literature and some liberal social reforms, but popular discontent with the conservative Tsarist government led to revolutions in 1905 and 1917, the collapse of the empire, and the formation of the USSR in 1922.
• A country of eastern Europe and northern Asia stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Formerly the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the largest of the constituent republics of the USSR, it became an independent state in 1991 with Boris Yeltsin as the country's first directly elected president. In that same year, with Belarus and Ukraine, Russia formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was eventually joined by 12 of the 15 former Soviet republics. In March 1992 Russia signed a treaty with most of the semiautonomous ethnic territories within its borders, establishing the Russian Federation. Moscow is the capital.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Short for Russia leather.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A country of Europe and Asia.
• noun a kind of sheet iron made in Russia, having a lustrous blue-black surface.
• noun a soft kind of leather, made originally in Russia but now elsewhere, having a peculiar odor from being impregnated with an oil obtained from birch bark. It is much used in bookbinding, on account of its not being subject to mold, and being proof against insects.
• noun matting manufactured in Russia from the inner bark of the linden (Tilia Europæa).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• proper noun A country in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. The Country extends from the Gulf of Finland to the Pacific Ocean, and was part of the USSR from 1922 to 1991. Co-official name - Russian Federation, formerly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), Capital and largest city Moscow
• proper noun historical, informal The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (a very common name, although more formally Russia, the RSFSR, was one of several constituent republics of the USSR).
• proper noun historical The Russian Empire.
• proper noun historical, dated Rus, the medieval East Slavic state.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a federation in northeastern Europe and northern Asia; formerly Soviet Russia; since 1991 an independent state
• noun a former communist country in eastern Europe and northern Asia; established in 1922; included Russia and 14 other soviet socialist republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia and others); officially dissolved 31 December 1991
• noun formerly the largest Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR occupying eastern Europe and northern Asia
• noun a former empire in eastern Europe and northern Asia created in the 14th century with Moscow as the capital; powerful in the 17th and 18th centuries under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great when Saint Petersburg was the capital; overthrown by revolution in 1917