federation (n.)

  1. an organization formed by merging several groups or parties

  2. a union of political organizations

    [ Syn: confederation , confederacy ]

  3. the act of constituting a political unity out of a number of separate states or colonies or provinces so that each member retains the management of its internal affairs

The dictionary is based on the WordNet Electronic Lexical Database.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2011 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.