nationality

Noun

nationality (plural nationalities)

1. Legal membership of a particular nation or state, by origin, birth, naturalization, ownership, allegiance or otherwise.
   • By living in the country for five years, you are entitled to get nationality.
   • Stefi was born in Spain to a Brazilian father and a Chilean mother, so is eligible for three nationalities.

   Synonyms:

   affiliation, allegiance, ancestry, citizenship, descent, enfranchisement, ethnicity, national status, naturalization, origin

2. A people sharing a common origin, culture and/or language, and possibly constituting a nation-state.
   • Rosa Luxemburg held that the recognition of the right of nationalities to self-determination was one of the Bolsheviks' gravest mistakes.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...

   Synonyms:

   clan, confederation, cultural group, culture, denomination, ethnic group, ethnicity, faith, group, nation

3. (archaic) National, i.e. ethnic and/or cultural, character or identity.
   • […]permit me to say that the Harranians were Arabs and that the Arabs in occupying Spain and Andalusia did not lose their nationality; they remained Arabs. […] The fact that they preserved their former religion, Sabaeanism, does not mean they should be considered foreign to the Arab nationality.1968, Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn, “Answer of Jamāl ad-Dīn to Renan”, in Nikki R. Keddie, translated by Nikki R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism, University of California Press, →LCCN, page 185

   Synonyms:

   ancestry, color, colour, ethnicity, identity, origin

4. (archaic) Nationalism or patriotism.
   • ‘You are, to be sure, wonderfully free from that nationality: but so it happens, that you employ the only Scotch shoe-black in London.’1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 599

   Synonyms:

   nationalism, patriotic sentiment, patriotism

5. (obsolete) Political existence, independence or unity as a national entity.

   Synonyms:

   autarchy, autonomy, freedom, independence, liberty, nationhood, self-determination, self-government, self-rule, separation