the.com/commonwealth

means A political community organized for the shared good of its members — or, loosely, a voluntary association of states that keeps its old ties without the old chains.

from A straightforward compound from Middle English: 'common' + 'wealth,' where 'wealth' meant not riches but well-being or welfare (as in 'weal,' the public good). So a 'commonwealth' was literally the general welfare, the shared prosperity of a people — the term for the body politic itself. It later narrowed into specific uses: England's republican interlude under Cromwell called itself the Commonwealth, and the word was later chosen for the British Commonwealth precisely because it suggested partnership rather than empire — a wealth held in common, not extracted by a crown.