Other forms: republics
A republic is a country with no king or queen at the top: the head of state is chosen, not born into the job. France is a republic, Ireland is a republic, and the United Kingdom, with its monarch, is not.
The word also names a stretch of history — the Roman Republic, the Weimar Republic, the years a country spent without a crown. Republican is the adjective, and in the United States it is a party name as well, so a capital R changes what you are saying. A republic is not the same as a democracy: the test is only how the head of state is chosen, which is why some deeply unfree states still call themselves republics. Banana republic is an insult for a small country run for the profit of a few. The Latin behind the word is blunt about the idea: the public thing.
1nounrepublicA state whose head is elected rather than inheriting the position.
“Portugal became a republic in 1910.”
2nouneraThe period during which a country was governed without a monarch.
“The Roman republic lasted for nearly five hundred years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Republic came through Middle French republique from Latin rēspūblicā, which is two words pushed together: rēs, a thing, and publicus, public. The public thing — the business that belongs to everybody instead of to one family. Rome used the phrase for the state itself, and Europe has been borrowing it ever since.
Middle French
republique
English, today
republic
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French republique. From Middle French republique (“republic”), from Latin rēspūblicā, from rēs (“thing”) + publicus (“public”); hence literally “the public thing”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA