1. the official name of some states in the United States (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Kentucky) and associated territories (Puerto Rico)
2. a politically organized body of people under a single government;
"the state has elected a new president"
"African nations"
"students who had come to the nation's capitol"
"the country's largest manufacturer"
"an industrialized land"
3. a world organization of autonomous states that are united in allegiance to a central power but are not subordinate to it or to one another
4. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them