A political entity whose political status is less than that of a fully sovereignnation-state, as with the former Congo Free State and the former Irish Free State.
A Federal state, with allegiance to a larger entity, as currently with Germany, and earlier, the relationship between the states of the Holy Roman Empire and the Emperor, and later, the states of the German Empire under the Hohenzollerns.
An independent or autonomous political entity whose formal status and relationship to other states is undefined.
(engineering) A condition of not being supported or constrained by outside forces.
(US, historical) Prior to the American Civil War, any of the states in which the owning of slaves was not legal.
(grammar) a nounform in Afro-Asiatic languages contrasting with the construct state by the noun not being dependent (more commonly called absolute state, or indeterminate state if the specific language contrasts a determinate state with the construct state)
