colonise
part of speech
verb (colonise, colonises, colonised, colonising); US spelling colonize
meaning for a pupil
1) To colonise a place means a country sends people to settle there and takes control of the land, often from the people already living there. tree →
2) (science) When plants, animals or germs colonise a place, they spread into it and start living and growing there. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons it tells how empires such as Britain, Spain and France took over lands in America, Africa, Asia and Australia, and how this often harmed the people who already lived there. In science it is used for living things moving into a new place: moss colonises bare rock, bacteria colonise a wound. Related words: colony, colonist, colonial, colonisation, decolonise.
examples
- Britain began to colonise Australia in 1788. tree →
- Settlers from Europe colonised large parts of North America. tree →
- The First Nations people did not invite anyone to colonise their land. tree →
- Weeds quickly colonised the empty car park. tree →
- Bacteria can colonise a cut if you do not clean it. tree →
- Some scientists dream of colonising Mars one day. tree →
- Lichens are often the first living things to colonise bare rock. tree →
note
UK, Australian, NZ and Irish spelling: colonise; US and usually Canadian: colonize. Past: colonised. Noun: colonisation; a person: colonist; the place: colony. Not the same as «colon» (the punctuation mark or part of the gut). Colonising is seen very differently by the settlers and by the people whose land was taken; good history tells both sides.
In the corpora
- In Europa Universalis 5, colonising looks like filling empty provinces with settlers.
- Thailand, with its capital Bangkok, is the only country in South-East Asia never colonised by a European power.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «colonise» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.