nonstate
UK/ˈnɒnˌsteɪt/
nonstate adjective: not constituting or belonging to a state; not characterised by the institutional power or authority of an organized government.
Adjective
nonstate (not comparable)
- Not constituting or belonging to a state; not characterised by the institutional power or authority of an organized government.
- The nonstate peoples we are most familiar with are the hunters and gatherers living in small bands like the ǃKung San of the Kalahari Desert and the Inuit of the Arctic.2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 49
- More than 70 non-state armed groups were recorded as using the weapons, including 12 that fired rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel.2013 April 12, Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
Noun
nonstate (plural nonstates)
- A sociopolitical entity other than a state.
- States that fail to sufficiently attend to the "imagined" attributes of statehood required by the international system risk being deemed nonstates by the international community...2005, Ann Hironaka, Neverending wars
Forms of nonstate
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | non-state |
| Noun | |
| plural | nonstates |
Origin of nonstate
From non- + state.
Words formed from nonstate
Phrases with nonstate
Questions about nonstate
- What does nonstate mean?
- Nonstate means not constituting or belonging to a state; not characterised by the institutional power or authority of an organized government.
- What part of speech is nonstate?
- Nonstate can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce nonstate?
- Nonstate is pronounced /ˈnɒnˌsteɪt/ (UK).
Words near nonstate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nonstate (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:
Cite this entry: “nonstate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nonstate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.