English

Alternative forms

• commonwealthsman

Noun

commonwealthman ‎(plural commonwealthmen)

1. (historical) Someone who lived under the English Commonwealth of the 17th century, especially an adherent of it; loosely, a republican.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 222:

     Other radicals looked for inspiration to England again – though, interestingly, neither to Voltaire's commercial nor Montesquieu's constitutional paragon, but rather to the seventeenth-century Commonwealthmen.

   • 2008, David Dwan, The Great Community, p. 52:

     Machiavelli had a decisive influence on the English political thinker and commonwealthman James Harrington, who in turn had an enormous impact on Irish patriots such as John Toland, Robert Molesworth and Francis Hutcheson.