FPT

Adjective

federal (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to a league or treaty; derived from an agreement or covenant between parties, especially between nations.
   • Yet the Romans, taking them [the Carthaginians] at an Advantage, vvhen they vvere in Streights; compell'd them, contrary to all Fœderal Right and Juſtice, by Nevv Articles, both to part with Sardinia, their Lavvful Territory, and alſo to pay them for the future, a Double Tribute.1701, Nehemiah Grew, “Of Providence over Publick States”, in Cosmologia Sacra: Or A Discourse of the Universe as It is the Creature and Kingdom of God. […], London: […] W[illiam] Rogers, S[amuel]...
2. Pertaining to the national government level in a federal nation, as opposed to state, provincial, county, city, or town.
   • That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are...1798, James Madison, Virginia Resolutions of 1798
3. Relating to covenantalism.
   • federal theology

See all 10 meanings of federal