a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own: The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.
2.
the territory or country itself: the nations of Central America.
3.
a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.
4.
an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.
Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English < Latin nātiōn- (stem of nātiō) birth, tribe, equivalent to nāt(us) (past participle of nāscī to be born) + -iōn--ion
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
c.1300, from O.Fr. nacion, from L. nationem (nom. natio) "nation, stock, race," lit. "that which has been born," from natus, pp. of nasci "be born" (Old L. gnasci; see genus). Political sense has gradually taken over from racial meaning "large group of people with common ancestry."