res publica
UK/ɹeɪzˈpʊb.lɪ.kə/
res publica noun: the common good, as identified with the wider state; the commonwealth, the body politic.
Noun
res publica (uncountable)
- The common good, as identified with the wider state; the commonwealth, the body politic.
- At the same time the Roman-barbarian regna distinguished themselves from the res publica.1997, Herwig Wolfram, The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples, page 190
- There was no question as yet of republicanism being on the agenda, other than in the old, weak sense of a res publica or commonwealth to which both ruler and ruled owed allegiance.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 402
Origin of res publica
Unadapted borrowing from Latin rēs pūblica. Doublet of republic.
Questions about res publica
- What does res publica mean?
- Res publica means the common good, as identified with the wider state; the commonwealth, the body politic.
- What part of speech is res publica?
- Res publica is a noun.
- How do you pronounce res publica?
- Res publica is pronounced /ɹeɪzˈpʊb.lɪ.kə/ (UK).
Words near res publica in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: res publica (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.
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Cite this entry: “res publica.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/res_publica. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.