protectorate
/prəˈtɛkt(ə)rət
/noun
1A state that is controlled and protected by another: Panama was juridically a protectorate of the United States [in names]: the British Somaliland Protectorate...
- Some European overseas empires, most notably the British, made a pretty firm distinction between the core modern state and the colonies, dominions, and protectorates that made up the empire.
- In 1783 the king of Kartli (in eastern Georgia) signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Russians, by which Russia agreed to take the kingdom as its protectorate.
- In 1902, they succeeded in establishing firm control over the Ashanti region and making the northern territories a protectorate.
1.1The relationship between a protectorate and the state that controls it: a French protectorate had been established over Tunis...
- As its free trade and influential relationship with Africa was threatened, Britain began to turn trade agreements into stronger and more formal protectorates and even colonies.
- As foreign secretary he resisted party pressure to withdraw from Uganda and imposed a protectorate on that territory.
- The evils of the labor trade prompted the United Kingdom to declare a protectorate over the southern Solomons in 1893.
2 (usually Protectorate) historical The position or period of office of a Protector, especially that in England of Oliver and Richard Cromwell.Whether or not his spirit had been broken, Westrowe's health was clearly poor, and he died in late 1653, as England abandoned the republican experiment in favour of the Cromwellian protectorate.
