federal
Noun pluralfederals
Pluralfederals
- 1Belonging to or controlled by the national government of a country with a federal system, rather than its states, provinces, counties, or towns.
Federal agencies oversee programs that operate across all fifty states.
The dispute eventually moved from a state court to a federal one.
UsageUsually lower case except in names: federal law, a federal court, but the Federal Reserve.
Similarnational
Oppositestate, provincial, local
- 2Of a system of government: uniting states or regions under a central authority while each retains powers to govern some of its own affairs.
Germany's federal structure gives its states wide powers over education and policing.
Some reformers argue that a federal model would ease tensions between the capital and the regions.
UsageUsually before a noun: a federal system, a federal republic. The idea itself is federalism.
Similarfederated
Oppositeunitary
Note
The word names the whole arrangement here, which can trip readers up, because in a country like the United States it also names the national level alone: a federal system contains both federal and state governments. Its usual opposite is unitary, for a state run from one center, and a confederation is a looser union with a weaker center.
- 3An agent employed by a federal government, working for the national level of authority rather than for a state, province, or city.
Similaragent
Less common meanings
- 4A soldier of the Union, or Northern, army during the American Civil War.
The federals held the ridge against repeated Confederate charges.
Each federal carried rations for three days on the long march.
UsageMost often plural, the federals, set against the Confederates; today the noun more often means a federal agent.
SimilarYankee
OppositeConfederate
- 5A person who advocates federation: the union of separate states under a central government.
Similarfederalist, unionist
- 6Founded on a compact between parties, especially nations, or having to do with a league or treaty.
Similarconfederate, allied
Note
Nehemiah Grew still spells it Fœderal in 1701, writing of "Fœderal Right and Justice" between Rome and Carthage, meaning the rights a treaty creates between nations. The related senses, from national government to the theologian's covenants, all share this idea of parties bound by agreement.
- 7Intrusive or nosy; prying into and exposing someone else's private affairs.
- 8Relating to covenant theology, the Christian framework that interprets Scripture through a series of covenants between God and humanity.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of federal apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
It goes back to Latin foedus ("covenant, league, treaty, or alliance"), whose stem foeder- gave French fédéral, the immediate source of the English word.