as in union
an association of persons, parties, or states for mutual assistance and protection
a confederacy of several small nations who had promised to come to one another's aid if any were attacked
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Recent Examples of confederacy
Long before settlers came to the Americas, there was a confederacy and governance system between three tribes: the Ottawa, the Ojibwe and the Potawatomi.
—
J.m. Banks, Kansas City Star, 25 Oct. 2025
The confederacy of tribes was pressured into ceding lands to the state of New York, and further displaced by ensuing frontier settlement.
—Matthew Smith, The Conversation, 20 Oct. 2025
The clouds are as much a character in Murphy’s work as the cowboys, though the former are unchanged since the Oceti Sakowin first formed their confederacy.
—Casey Cep, New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2025
In the sixteenth century, the nomadic, reindeer-herding Sámi people of what’s now northern Sweden and Finland and the Shawnee of the Ohio Valley in North America, who lived in farming villages organized as a confederacy, didn’t necessarily have much in common.
—Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 30 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for confederacy
J.m. Banks, Kansas City Star, 25 Oct. 2025
The confederacy of tribes was pressured into ceding lands to the state of New York, and further displaced by ensuing frontier settlement.
—Matthew Smith, The Conversation, 20 Oct. 2025
The clouds are as much a character in Murphy’s work as the cowboys, though the former are unchanged since the Oceti Sakowin first formed their confederacy.
—Casey Cep, New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2025
In the sixteenth century, the nomadic, reindeer-herding Sámi people of what’s now northern Sweden and Finland and the Shawnee of the Ohio Valley in North America, who lived in farming villages organized as a confederacy, didn’t necessarily have much in common.
—Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 30 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for confederacy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for confederacy
Noun
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The Committee for Better Banks, which is helping organize union efforts alongside the CWA, hopes the movement will one day expand to Charlotte as the union pushes for higher pay, staffing levels and benefits.—
Chase Jordan
April 2,
Charlotte Observer,
2 Apr. 2026
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Then the studio structured trailers and marketing around an unspecified, unspeakable disclosure by Zendaya’s character that derails the wedding plans (and imperils the characters’ romantic union) to stoke maximum curiosity.—
Chris Lee,
Vulture,
2 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Trump has long disparaged NATO and sought to get other members of the alliance to boost their defense spending.—
Michael Loria,
USA Today,
1 Apr. 2026
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Earlier Monday, Turkey's defense ministry announced that the alliance's air defenses deployed in the eastern Mediterranean had, for a fourth time during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, intercepted an Iranian missile that had entered its airspace.—
Lucia I Suarez Sang,
CBS News,
31 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Cracks were forming in the MAGA coalition, and the Groypers saw an opening.—
Antonia Hitchens,
New Yorker,
6 Apr. 2026
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The coalition, backed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, argues that Catholic schools are being unlawfully excluded from the program because of their religious beliefs.—
Jack Birle,
The Washington Examiner,
5 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Stanwick, a prominent Iron Age stronghold in northern England, is widely believed to have been a political hub of the Brigantes, a powerful Celtic confederation with a complex relationship with Rome.—
Andrea Margolis,
FOXNews.com,
31 Mar. 2026
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There are six teams from five confederations.—
Jack Lang,
New York Times,
25 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The six national soccer federations, also including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czech Republic and Sweden, now get allocations from FIFA of several thousand tickets for each of their World Cup games.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
1 Apr. 2026
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An early April 2025 poll carried out by the Angus Reid Institute found that only three in 10 Albertans would vote to leave the Canadian federation.—
Kate Plummer,
MSNBC Newsweek,
1 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Other international soccer stars would soon sign with NASL teams as the league fought to elbow its way into the American sports consciousness.—
John Meyer,
Denver Post,
6 Apr. 2026
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Part of the reason is the league’s revenue-sharing system.—
Dan Sheldon,
New York Times,
6 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Confederacy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/confederacy. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.
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