Commonwealth
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A form of government, named for the concept that everything that is not owned by specific individuals or groups is owned collectively by everyone in the governmental unit, as opposed to a state, where the state itself owns such things. Approximately, a republic.
Example sentence: I am George Rogers Clark. You have just become a prisoner of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Republic
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A state where sovereignty rests with the people or their representatives, rather than with a monarch or emperor; a country with no monarchy.One of the subdivisions constituting Russia. See oblast.
Example sentence: Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.