plural of state line

(Britain) Synonym of country house, especially one owned by the aristocracy

(US, historical) Prior to the American Civil War, any of the states in which the owning of slaves was legal.

(philosophy, religion, law) The way that people lived before there was any organized society.

(archaic, dated, depreciated) The U.S. state of Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia

Synonym of state-owned enterprise.

(Ireland) state-owned but managed independently along commercial lines / ceremonial, but somewhat less ornate, formal, or prestigious than would be classed as "state"

(grammar) A noun form occurring in Afroasiatic languages, when the noun does not bear a determiner – where it would use the determinate state –, nor governs a noun – where it would use the construct state.

(grammar) A noun form occurring in Afroasiatic languages, when the noun does bear a determiner (by contrast, in Aramaic there is an emphatic state or status emphaticus as a state of determination by the noun alone)

plural of state church