colony meaning and definition

COLONY noun

Definition of colony (noun)

1. a body of people who settle far from home but maintain ties with their homeland; inhabitants remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state's system of government
   • "the American colony in Paris"
   • synonyms: settlement
2. a group of organisms of the same type living or growing together
3. one of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States
4. a place where a group of people with the same interest or occupation are concentrated
   • "a nudist colony"; "an artists' colony"
5. a geographical area politically controlled by a distant country
   • synonyms: dependency
6. (microbiology) a group of organisms grown from a single parent cell