Republic

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: re + pub + lic

Alternative forms

• republick obsolete
• republique obsolete

Origin

From French république ("republic"), derived from Latin rēs publica ("republic"), from rēs ("thing") + pūblica ("public"); hence literally “the public thing”.

Full definition of republic

Noun

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, The Purchase Price Chapter 1, “… 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 SketchRepublicanism 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

• maritime republic
• republican
• republicanism