Meaning & use
colony
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Meanings
nouncountable
A territory ruled and controlled by a more powerful country, often settled by people from that country.
Grammar: Takes a plural: colonies; often used with the controlling country's name.
Patterns
- a colony of a country
- establish a colony
- former colony
The island was a colony for nearly two centuries.
Many former colonies kept the former ruler's language.
The museum explains how the colony governed daily life.
nouncountablebiology
A group of animals, plants, or microorganisms of the same kind living or growing closely together.
Grammar: Takes a plural: colonies; usually followed by of.
Patterns
- a colony of ants
- a bacterial colony
- form a colony
A colony of ants carried crumbs across the patio.
The lab grew a bacterial colony from one sample.
Each coral colony supports many small fish.
Word forms
| plural | colonies |
|---|
Common combinations
- establish a colony
- Settlers tried to establish a colony near the river.
- former colony
- The former colony still uses many old administrative buildings.
- colony of ants
- A colony of ants appeared after the rain.
- penal colony
- The remote island once served as a penal colony.
- bacterial colony
- A bacterial colony was visible on the plate.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dependency
- Similar in politics, but stresses reliance on the ruling power more than settlement.
- settlement
- Emphasizes people living in a new place, not necessarily political control from abroad.
- outpost
- A small, distant position; it is not usually a whole governed territory.
- territory
- Broader and neutral; a colony is a territory under foreign control.
Opposites
Word family
- colonial adjective
- Relating to colonies, colonists, or the period of colonial rule.
- colonist noun
- A person who settles in a colony.
- colonize verb
- To establish control over a place and settle people there.
- colonization noun
- The process of taking control of and settling another territory.
Commonly confused: colony or colon?
colony vs colon
A colon is punctuation or part of the digestive system; a colony is a governed territory or living group.
Practice
In biology class, the phrase “a ______ of bees” means a group living together.
Choose one answer.
Colony names a group of the same organism living together. Colonist refers to a person, while colon and column are unrelated in this context.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “colony”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.