colonies

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
colony/ˈkɒləni/

▶noun (pl. colonies)

• 1 a country or area under the political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country.

  ■ (the colonies) all the foreign places formerly under British political control.

  ■ (the colonies) the thirteen areas on the east coast of North America that gained independence and founded the United States of America.

• 2 a group of people of one nationality or race living in a foreign place.

  ■ a place where a group of people with the same occupation or interest live together: a nudist colony.

• 3 Biology a community of animals or plants of one kind living close together or forming a physically connected structure.

– origin ME: from L. colonia ‘settlement, farm’, from colonus ‘settler, farmer’, from colere ‘cultivate’.