State

Any sovereign polity. A government.
- 20C, Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949)
  
  Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
A political division of a federation retaining a degree of autonomy, for example one of the fifty United States. See also Province.
A condition.

A state of being.

A state of emergency.
Pomp, ceremony, or dignity.

The President's body will lie in state at the Capitol.
(computing) The stable condition of a processor during a particular clock cycle.

In the fetch state, the address of the next instruction is placed on the address bus.
(computing) The set of all parameters relevant to a computation.

The state here includes a set containing all names seen so far.
(computing) The values of all parameters at some point in a computation.

A debugger can show the state of a program at any breakpoint.
(anthropology) A society larger than a tribe. A society large enough to form a state in the sense of a government.

Derived terms

buffer state
head of state
state of affairs
state of emergency
statehood

Credits

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