confederacy
/kənˈfɛd(ə)rəsi
/noun (plural confederacies)
1A league or alliance, especially of confederate states: the Italian confederacy known as the Lombard League...
- His uncle, who had shaped his career, was the foreign intelligence chief for the confederacy, during the Civil War - a man of traitorous inclinations, shall we say?
- Estrella had never heard any of these words before, and she hadn't the slightest idea of what a federation or a confederacy was.
- Maybe it is a federation or a confederacy with a system of power division?
Synonyms
federation, confederation, alliance, league, association, coalition, combine, consortium, conglomerate, cooperative, partnership, syndicate, compact, band, group, circle, ring;
bloc, axis;
society, union, guild, fellowship
rare consociation, sodality
1.1 (the Confederacy) another term for Confederate States of America.
1.2A union of people or groups formed for an illicit purpose: the Yakuza is a secret confederacy of criminal fraternities...
- The wicked are being bound up in bundles, bound up in trusts, in unions, in confederacies.
- The problem for natural individuals, Hobbes wrote, is that ‘the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others.’
- Rapidly evolving technology and the independent decisions of members of the department confederacy assure that enterprise-wide interoperability will not occur soon.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French confederacie, based on Latin confoederare 'join together in league' (see confederation).
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