polity

1. 1.

   the form of government of a social organization

   Synonymscivil order

   Broaderorder
2. 2.

   a politically organized unit

   Broaderorganization

   Narrowergovernment
3. 3.

   shrewd or crafty management of public affairs

   “we was innocent of stratagems and polity”

   Broaderadministration

Other forms of polity

plural

polities·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about polity

What does polity mean?

polity means "the form of government of a social organization". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in polity?

polity has 3 syllables: po-li-ty. The stress falls on "po". In IPA it is /ˈpɑləti/.

What is another word for polity?

Close synonyms include civil order. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is polity a common word?

polity is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.