— governmental /guv'euhrn men"tl, -euhr men"-/ , adj. — governmentally , adv.
/guv"euhrn meuhnt, -euhr meuhnt/ , n.
1. the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration: Government is necessary to the existence of civilized society.
2. the form or system of rule by which a state, community, etc., is governed: monarchical government; episcopal government.
3. the governing body of persons in a state, community, etc.; administration.
4. a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as representing the whole: a dam built by the government.
5. (in some parliamentary systems, as that of the United Kingdom)
a. the particular group of persons forming the cabinet at any given time: The Prime Minister has formed a new government.
b. the parliament along with the cabinet: The government has fallen.
6. direction; control; management; rule: the government of one's conduct.
7. a district governed; province.
8. See political science .
9. Gram. the extablished usage that requires that one word in a sentence should cause another to be of a particular form: the government of the verb by its subject.
[ 1350-1400; ME governement. See GOVERN, -MENT ]
Usage . See collective noun .
Pronunciation . Normal phonological processes are reflected in a variety of pronunciations for GOVERNMENT. Most commonly, the first /n/ of /guv"euhrn meuhnt/ assimilates to the immediately following /m/ , with the resulting identical nasal sounds coalescing to give the pronunciation /guv"euhr meuhnt/ . This pronunciation is considered standard and occurs throughout the U.S. For speakers in regions where postvocalic /r/ is regularly lost, as along the Eastern Seaboard and in the South, the resulting pronunciation is /guv"euh meuhnt/ or, with loss of the medial unstressed vowel, /guv"meuhnt/ .
Further assimilation, in which the labiodental /v/ , in anticipation of the bilabial quality of the following /m/ , becomes the bilabial stop /b/ , leads in the South Midland and Southern U.S. to the pronunciation /gub"meuhnt/ . See isn't .