colonial
/kəˈləʊ.ni.əl/US/kəˈloʊ.njəl/
colonial adjective: of or pertaining to a colony.
Adjective
colonial (comparative more colonial, superlative most colonial)
- Of or pertaining to a colony.
- Of or pertaining to a period when a country or territory was a colony.
- From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, archived from the original on 25 Nov 2020, page 52
- India’s half-hour zone dates back to colonial rule of India and the era when ever-faster steamships and trains were shrinking the world.2024 May 8, Dhruv Tikekar, “How India got stuck in its own unusual time zone”, in CNN
- Of or pertaining to the ideals of colonialism.
- Of or relating to the original Thirteen Colonies of the USA.
- Of or relating to the style of architecture prevalent at about the time of the Revolution.
- Tending to form colonies (especially of cells).
Noun
colonial (plural colonials)
- A person from a country that is or was controlled by another.
- None of them are, so to speak, idle men. Many of them are emigrants, not of the soil born and bred colonials.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 192
- The rest of us had tea and finger sandwiches with members of the royal household, which was very elegant but hard on some of us ill-schooled colonials.2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 150
- A house that is built in a style reminiscent of the period of the colonization of New England.
- A coin or postage stamp issued by a colony.
- This simple soul, who possesses a talent not inferior to that of Cavino at his best, has for many years turned his hand to the not unprofitable occupation of forging rare Greek and Roman coins. As a collector and student of certain Greek colonials and a specialist in forgeries I have been familiar...1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados
colonial meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
colonial in Hindi
- of or pertaining to a colony
- औपनिवेशिक aupniveśik
- of or pertaining to a period when a country or territory was a colony
- औपनिवेशिक aupniveśik
colonial in Tamil
- கூட்டணி, ஒட்டுமுறை இனப்பெருக்க
colonial in Urdu
- of or pertaining to a colony
- استعماری isti'mārī
colonial in Bengali
- উপনিবেশবাসী, ঔপনিবেশিক
More languagesFewer languages
- colonial in Malayalam
- കുടിയേറിപ്പാർക്കുന്ന വിദേശി, വന്നു താമസിക്കുന്നവൻ, അധിനിവേശ രാജ്യനിവാസി, കുടിയേറിപ്പാർപ്പ് സംബന്ധിച്ച
- colonial in Tagalog
- sakupbayanin, sakupin
- colonial in Arabic
- اِسْتِعْمَارِيّ istiʕmāriyy
- colonial in Malay
- jajahan, koloni, kolonial
- colonial in Persian
- استعماری este'mâri
- colonial in Vietnamese
- thực dân
Examples of colonial in a sentence
- Before colonial times cowry shells imported from Mauritius were used as money in Western Africa.
- In the 19th century, Britain and France were major colonial powers.
- During the colonial period, Britain used Canada as a major source of furs.
Forms of colonial
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more colonial |
| superlative | most colonial |
| Noun | |
| plural | colonials |
Origin of colonial
From colony + -al.
Words formed from colonial
- allocolonial
- anticolonial
- autocolonial
- biocolonial
- colonial bent
- colonial blue
- colonial empire
- colonial goose
- colonialise
- colonialism
- colonialist
- colonialistic
- colonialistically
- coloniality
- colonialization
- colonialize
- colonial lag
- colonially
- colonialness
- colonial rule
- colonial salmon
- concolonial
- countercolonial
- cybercolonial
- decolonial
- Eurocolonial
- French colonial empire
- heterocolonial
- homocolonial
- intercolonial
- intracolonial
- microcolonial
- multicolonial
- neocolonial
- noncolonial
- paracolonial
- postcolonial
- precolonial
- pseudocolonial
- retro-colonial
- semicolonial
- subcolonial
- supercolonial
- transcolonial
- uncolonial
- unicolonial
Phrases with colonial
Words that rhyme with colonial
Questions about colonial
- What does colonial mean?
- Colonial means of or pertaining to a colony.
- What is colonial in Hindi?
- Colonial in Hindi is औपनिवेशिक (aupniveśik). See Colonial meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is colonial?
- Colonial can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce colonial?
- Colonial is pronounced /kəˈləʊ.ni.əl/ (UK).
Words near colonial in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: colonial (page history and authors); colonial (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); colonial (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); colonial (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-colonial.wav.
Cite this entry: “colonial.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/colonial. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.