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estate

Pronunciation: /ɪˈsteɪt, ɛ-/
Translate estate | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of estate

noun

  • 1an area or amount of land or property, in particular:
  • British an area of land and modern buildings developed for residential, industrial, or commercial purposes.
  • an extensive area of land in the country, usually with a large house, owned by one person, family, or organization.
  • all the money and property owned by a particular person, especially at death:in his will, he divided his estate between his wife and daughter
  • a property where coffee, rubber, grapes, or other crops are cultivated: large coffee estates L’Ormarin’s wine estate
  • 2 (also estate of the realm) a class or order regarded as forming part of the body politic, in particular (in Britain), one of the three groups constituting Parliament, now the Lords spiritual (the heads of the Church), the Lords temporal (the peerage), and the Commons. They are also known as the three estates: the unions are no longer an estate of the realm
  • dated a particular class or category of people in society:the spiritual welfare of all estates of men
  • 3 archaic or literary a particular state, period, or condition in life:programmes for the improvement of man’s estate the holy estate of matrimony

Origin:

Middle English (in the sense 'state or condition'): from Old French estat, from Latin status 'state, condition', from stare 'to stand'

estate in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of estate in the US English dictionary
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