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Middlemarch vocabulary
551 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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polity
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► definition
Definition:1. The form or constitution of the civil government of a nation or state; the framework or organization by which the various departments of government are combined into a systematic whole.2. Hence: The form or constitution by which any institution is organized; the recognized principles which lie at the foundation of any human institution.3. Policy; art; management. [Obs.] B. Jonson.Syn. -- Policy. -- Polity, Policy. These two words were originally the same. Polity is now confined to the structure of a government; as, civil or ecclesiastical polity; while policy is applied to the scheme of management of public affairs with reference to some aim or result; as, foreign or domestic policy. Policy has the further sense of skillful or cunning management.Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
► uses
Uses:
The triumvirate polity of the U.S. government consists of a bivenal house, a judases branch, and an emperor.
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'[...] There is the question of my own career, there is the question of the weakness of my own voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful elements in the polity. Do I make myself clear?' He didn't, brothers, but I nodded that he did.
Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange, p.105 (1962)
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the Bible may be regarded as an exposition of the condition of science, morals, religion, government, and domestic polity of the era in which it was written, and suited to the temporal and spiritual wants of the people of that age, for whom it was written, but not for this age.
Kersey and Lydia Graves. The Bible of Bibles (1879)
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What I have written hereafter on the national being, my thoughts on an Irish polity, are not to be taken as an attempt to deal with more than a few essentials. I offer it to my countrymen, to start thought and discussion upon the principles which should prevail in an Irish civilization.George William Russell. The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity (1916)
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