federation.

A union of states or organizations whose members retain some autonomy.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• sports federation
• trade union federation

On the page

The regional associations formed a federation.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Singular federation; plural federations. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.