How to Use nation-state in a Sentence

nation-state

noun
  • On land, in the world of nation-states, Landi had reached the end of the line.
    Atossa Araxia Abrahamian Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, New York Times, 7 Jan. 2025
  • Looking down, nation-states can no longer unify their peoples.
    Joe Mathews, The Mercury News, 5 Oct. 2024
  • That much money has to be a nation-state, because no one else would be able to turn that much crypto into cash.
    Brady Dale, Axios, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Iran is a terrorist nation-state and is a threat to democracies worldwide.
    Derek Tran, Oc Register, 6 Mar. 2026
  • The able-bodied white male stood for the virility of the New Deal nation-state.
    John P. Murphy, ARTnews.com, 5 Apr. 2026
  • These brave souls forged new frontiers for nation-states and planted the right flag for posterity.
    S.c. Stuart, PC Magazine, 18 Mar. 2026
  • In one instance, the trio assisted in stopping a nation-state hacking group.
    IEEE Spectrum, 23 May 2023
  • And for a program run by a nation-state or a billionaire that doesn't want to have a rocket blow up, this is prudent.
    Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 25 Sep. 2025
  • Across the world, cities are stepping into leadership roles once reserved for nation-states.
    John Eger, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 July 2025
  • The governments of some nation-states are therefore confronted with a choice.
    Sharon Lemac-Vincere, WIRED, 29 June 2024
  • The house, in this case, is both the physical space where this confrontation takes place as well as the broader nation-state.
    Lovia Gyarkye, IndieWire, 19 Aug. 2025
  • During that conflict, their ancestral homes were nation-states.
    Ibrahim Al-Marashi, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 May 2026
  • That detail further suggests that the threat actor may have some connection to a nation-state.
    Beth Mole, ArsTechnica, 28 May 2025
  • Most successful attacks aren’t the result of nation-state zero-days.
    Tony Bradley, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
  • Most nation-states are deeply concerned with questions about ethnic coherence.
    Jp Brammer, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Now nation-states were claiming it for themselves, through the machines and people fueling their economies.
    Vauhini Vara, The Atlantic, 8 Dec. 2025
  • Let nation-states race to build narrow AIs for drug discovery, or drone warfare.
    Jason Hausenloy, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 July 2025
  • This is an excellent tool for nation-state actors and criminals alike who will be on a bonanza in the short term.
    Davey Winder, Forbes, 16 Mar. 2023
  • The example does not have to be a nation-state for this argument to work; the key thing is the competition.
    Eliot Bush, Scientific American, 7 Nov. 2023
  • Hamas is, at best, a hybrid — a militant group that governs a territory that is not a nation-state.
    Marc Fisher, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2023
  • APTs are typically very crafty and sponsored by a nation-state.
    Catherine Stupp, WSJ, 3 Aug. 2023
  • But in a world of nation-state attackers and the kind of content being secured, the risk—at some point—will become real.
    Zak Doffman, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2024
  • Even for a Greek city-state — so different in scale from today’s nation-states — the very end of the realm seemed to contain its origins.
    Kanishk Tharoor, Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2023
  • Takahashi’s book emphasizes the good of individuals more than that of nation-states.
    E. Tammy Kim, New Yorker, 16 June 2025
  • Losing Syria, the only other nation-state in the axis other than Iran, may be the coup de grace.
    Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 2025
  • There are age-old customs, social mores and privations, as well as conflict with nation-state ideology.
    The Week Uk, theweek, 19 July 2024
  • In the world of Berle and Means, firms operated mostly within the boundaries of nation-states.
    Mary Johnstone-Louis, Forbes.com, 20 June 2026
  • What was once mostly the realm of nation-state actors or large groups can now be accomplished with turnkey, off-the-shelf software available for purchase on the dark web.
    Alex Weprin, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 July 2024
  • In this impressive study, Hall argues that modern empires and nation-states are deeply entangled.
    Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025
  • But the idea of an inalienable Palestinian right to nation-state status is wobbly at best, and may be damaging to all sides.
    Justin Gest, Newsweek, 11 Feb. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nation-state.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: