Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic".
More recently it has been used for fraternal associations of some sovereign nations. Most notably, the Commonwealth of Nations, an association primarily of former members of the British Empire, is often referred to as simply "the Commonwealth".
Read more about Commonwealth: Etymology
Famous quotes containing the word commonwealth:
“Was I not born in this Realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country?... Is not my Kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made to this Commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard of the same?”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)