DOMINION

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of the self-governing nations in the British Commonwealth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("Dominion" is a kind of...):

body politic; commonwealth; country; land; nation; res publica; state (a politically organized body of people under a single government)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A region marked off for administrative or other purposes

Synonyms:

district; dominion; territorial dominion; territory

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Hypernyms ("dominion" is a kind of...):

region (a large indefinite location on the surface of the Earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dominion"):

British West Africa (the former British territories of western Africa, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Togo, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast)

British East Africa (the former British territories of eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar)

trust territory; trusteeship (a dependent country; administered by another country under the supervision of the United Nations)

possession (a territory that is controlled by a ruling state)

associated state; protectorate (a state or territory partly controlled by (but not a possession of) a stronger state but autonomous in internal affairs; protectorates are established by treaty)

mandate; mandatory (a territory surrendered by Turkey or Germany after World War I and put under the tutelage of some other European power until they are able to stand by themselves)

jurisdiction (in law; the territory within which power can be exercised)

goldfield (a district where gold is mined)

administrative district; administrative division; territorial division (a district defined for administrative purposes)

border district; borderland; march; marchland (district consisting of the area on either side of a border or boundary of a country or an area)

city district (a district of a town or city)

congressional district (a territorial division of a state; entitled to elect one member to the United States House of Representatives)

development (a district that has been developed to serve some purpose)

enclave (an enclosed territory that is culturally distinct from the foreign territory that surrounds it)

palatinate (a territory under the jurisdiction of a count palatine)

community; residential area; residential district (a district where people live; occupied primarily by private residences)

Instance hyponyms:

Louisiana Purchase (territory in the western United States purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million; extends from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada)

Kordofan (a mountainous province of central Sudan)

Darfur (an impoverished region of western Sudan)

Catalonia (a region of northeastern Spain)

Castile; Castilla (a region of central Spain; a former kingdom that comprised most of modern Spain and united with Aragon to form Spain in 1479)

Aragon (a region of northeastern Spain; a former kingdom that united with Castile in 1479 to form Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand V and Isabella I))

American Samoa; AS; Eastern Samoa (a United States territory on the eastern part of the island of Samoa)

KwaZulu-Natal; Natal (a region of eastern South Africa on the Indian Ocean)

Malaya; Peninsular Malaysia; West Malaysia (the region of Malaysia on the Malay Peninsula; shares a land border with Thailand to the north)

East Malaysia (the part of Malaysia that is on the island of Borneo)

Lothian Region (a district in southeast central Scotland (south side of the Firth of Forth) and the location of Edinburgh)

Galloway (a district in southwestern Scotland)

Palatinate; Pfalz (a territory in southwestern Germany formerly ruled by the counts palatine)

Athos; Mount Athos (an autonomous area in northeastern Greece that is the site of several Greek Orthodox monasteries founded in the tenth century)

Attica (the territory of Athens in ancient Greece where the Ionic dialect was spoken)

Boeotia (a district of ancient Greece to the northwest of Athens)

Papal States (the temporal dominions belonging to the pope (especially in central Italy))

Acadia (the French-speaking part of the Canadian Maritime Provinces)

Northwest Territories (a large territory in northwestern Canada; part is now Nunavut)

Nunavut (an Arctic territory in northern Canada created in 1999 and governed solely by the Inuit; includes the eastern part of what was the Northwest Territories and most of the islands of the Arctic Archipelago)

Yukon; Yukon Territory (a territory in northwestern Canada; site of the Klondike gold rush in the 1890s)

Northern Territory (a territory in north central Australia)

Northern Mariana Islands; Northern Marianas (a self-governing territory comprising all of the Mariana Islands except Guam)

Acre (a territory of western Brazil bordering on Bolivia and Peru)

Lake District; Lakeland (a popular tourist area in northwestern England including England's largest lake and highest mountain)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Dominance or power through legal authority

Example:

the rule of Caesar

Synonyms:

dominion; rule

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("dominion" is a kind of...):

ascendance; ascendancy; ascendence; ascendency; control; dominance (the state that exists when one person or group has power over another)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dominion"):

paramountcy (the state of being paramount; the highest rank or authority)

raj (British dominion over India (1757-1947))

reign; sovereignty (royal authority; the dominion of a monarch)

suzerainty (the position or authority of a suzerain)

Derivation:

dominate (be in control)

Credits

Context examples:

How much time she might, in her own fancy, allot for its dominion, is another concern.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

By this oblique motion, the island is conveyed to different parts of the monarch’s dominions.