colonial

Pluralcolonials

1. 1
   adjective

   Belonging to, relating to, or characteristic of a colony.

   Colonial administrators reported directly to the crown back home.

   The museum displays artifacts from the region's colonial past.

   Similarimperial

2. 2
   adjective

   Relating to the historical period during which a country or territory was a colony.

   Colonial architecture from that era still lines the old quarter.

   Her research focuses on trade during the colonial period.

   Note

   The sense that puts a date on things. It settles into fixed pairings such as colonial times, colonial rule and the colonial era, and describes what a place has inherited from a past it has left behind. The Economist in 2013 notes walls in Colombo's port dating back to colonial times, and CNN in 2024 traces India's half-hour time zone to colonial rule. Where the plain "of a colony" sense describes, this one dates.

3. 3
   adjective

   Relating to the beliefs and aims of colonialism.

   Critics attacked the policy as deeply colonial in spirit.

   The novel exposes the colonial mindset of its central characters.

   Similarimperialist, imperial

   Oppositeanticolonial, anti-imperialist

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A person who comes from a country controlled, now or in the past, by another.

   The club admitted both locals and colonials on equal terms.

   As a colonial, he never quite felt at home in the capital.

   Note

   A label whose tone depends on who uses it. Harriet W. Daly, writing in 1887 from the Northern Territory, sets emigrants apart from "born and bred colonials", people native to the colony. John Bolton in 2020 calls himself and his companions "ill-schooled colonials" at a royal tea, joking about an old condescension. Applied to others, the word can sound patronizing. Applied to oneself, it is usually wry.

5. 5
   adjectiveUS

   Relating to the original Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States.

   The colonial assemblies often clashed with the British governors.

   Boston was a major port throughout the colonial era.

   Note

   American English narrows the word to one particular history. Here it points to the Thirteen Colonies before independence, so phrases like colonial Boston or the colonial assemblies refer to that period and no other. Outside this usage the same phrase would suggest any country's colonial period. The architectural style and the house called a colonial both branch from this American sense.

6. 6
   adjectiveUS

   Relating to the style of architecture common around the time of the American Revolution.

   The neighborhood is known for its elegant colonial mansions.

   Architects revived the colonial look in the early twentieth century.

   Note

   A builder's and historian's term in American English, tied to the Revolutionary decades. The style shows a symmetrical facade, a central entrance, and evenly spaced multi-pane windows with restrained classical detailing. It usually comes before a noun, as in a colonial mansion or colonial details. When the word stands alone for the building itself, it becomes the noun for such a house.

7. 7
   nounUScountable

   A house constructed in a style that recalls the building period of early New England.

   The realtor showed them a beautifully restored colonial.

   Several colonials line the historic district downtown.

   Note

   Real-estate shorthand in American English, where the adjective for the Revolutionary-era building style has become a noun for the house itself. It counts like any other word for a house: a restored colonial, several colonials on one street. It names a resemblance, not an age, so a colonial can be newly built.

8. 8
   adjective

   Tending to form colonies, especially in the case of cells or small organisms.

   Coral polyps are colonial, building reefs from countless connected individuals.

   Biologists classify the species as colonial because its cells stay joined.

   Oppositesolitary

   Note

   Biology uses the word for how organisms live, not where. In a colonial species the individuals, often single cells, stay joined in a connected group. They may remain physiologically linked instead of living as independent units, as coral polyps do when they build a reef. Because it names a habit of life, it pairs with words like organism, species or cell, never with places or periods.

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