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colonial

UK/kəˈləʊ.ni.əl/US/kəˈloʊ.njəl/
adjectiveC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,864 of 15,258mostly written

Colonial means belonging to the time when distant lands were ruled from Europe. Colonial rule, the colonial period, a colonial power.

It covers the administration, the architecture and the attitudes together, which is why colonial can be a neutral date marker and a heavy criticism in the same sentence. Postcolonial studies examines what the period left behind. In America, colonial means the period before 1776 and is used of architecture without much criticism at all. Note colonialism; and colony.

Definitions of colonial

  1. 1adjectivecolonialBelonging to the period of European rule over distant lands.C1

    “Many of the city's colonial buildings date from the time of Spanish rule.”

colonial is a historical quality.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *kʷel-

  2. Latin

    colōnia

  3. Middle English

    colane

  4. English

    colony

  5. English, today

    colonial

Built from

  • colōnus · Latin — farmer; colonist
  • colō · Latin — till, cultivate, worship

From colony + -al. colony comes from Middle English colane, from Latin colōnia. From Middle English colane, colonye, from Latin colōnia (“colony”), from colōnus (“farmer; colonist”), from colō (“till, cultivate, worship”), from earlier *quelō, from Proto-Indo-European kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”). a doublet of Cologne and Colonia and Köln.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in History & Eras

Practise this word

colonial in the wild

  • A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America.

    British Empire

  • Military, economic and colonial tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily on its empire.

    British Empire

  • On the eve of World War I, France's colonial empire was the second-largest in the world after the British Empire.

    French colonial empire

  • The Portuguese Empire, c. 1415 to 1999, was the first and longest lasting of the European colonial empires.

    Portuguese Empire

  • By then, the colonial possessions had been reduced to forts and plantations along the African coastline, Portuguese Timor, and enclaves in India and Macau.

    Portuguese Empire

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the colō family

culturecolonycultcultural

colonial — used about once every 1,633 pages · #5,864 · point at the bar for the others