republic

See also: Republic

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle French republique (“republic”), borrowed from Latin rēpūblicā, ablative singular of rēspūblica (“republic”), from rēs (“thing”) + pūblica (“public”); hence literally “the public thing”.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): [ɹɪˈpʌblɪk]
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Hyphenation: re‧pub‧lic

Noun

republic (plural republics)

  1. A state where sovereignty rests with the people or their representatives, rather than with a monarch or emperor; a country with no monarchy.
    The United States is a republic; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a constitutional monarchy.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0088:
      “[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps ? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic ? […] ”
  2. (archaic) A state, which may or may not be a monarchy, in which the executive and legislative branches of government are separate.
    • 1795, Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch
      Republicanism is the political principle of the separation of the executive power (the administration) from the legislative; despotism is that of the autonomous execution by the state of laws which it has itself decreed. […] Therefore, we can say: the smaller the personnel of the government (the smaller the number of rulers), the greater is their representation and the more nearly the constitution approaches to the possibility of republicanism; thus the constitution may be expected by gradual reform finally to raise itself to republicanism […]. None of the ancient so-called "republics" knew this system, and they all finally and inevitably degenerated into despotism under the sovereignty of one, which is the most bearable of all forms of despotism.
  3. One of the subdivisions constituting Russia. See oblast.
    The Republic of Udmurtia is west of the Permian Oblast.

Derived terms
Terms derived from republic

Translations
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Translations to be checked

See also

Further reading
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