a. (sb.) [f. L. colōnia COLONY + -AL: so in mod.Fr.]
A. adj.
1. Of, belonging to, or relating to a colony, or (spec.) the British colonies; in American history, of or belonging to the thirteen British colonies which became the United States, or to the time while they were still colonies.
[1755–73. not in Johnson.]
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, iv. Wks. IX. 92. In all our Colonial Councils.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), II. 13. Coffee, indigo, spices, and other foreign and colonial articles.
1858. Longf., Phantom Ship, i. In Mather’s Magnalia Christi Of the old colonial time.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 121. In foreign and colonial mints.
1876. Humphreys, Coin-coll. Man., xxiii. 308. The colonial was a form of provincial government which prevailed in the Augustan age.
1884. Standard, 28 Feb., 5/1. In defiance of the expressed wishes of the Colonial Office.
2. Biol. Forming a colony (see COLONY 8).
1885. H. N. Moseley, in Times, 16 Jan., 5/5. Colonial animals were animals consisting in an aggregation of individuals of the same species. Another term often used for them was that of compound animals.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 725. The colonial Anthozoa.
B. sb.
1. An inhabitant of a colony; = COLONIST 1 b.
1865. Fraser’s Mag., Oct., 433. The colonials are as sensitive to home criticisms as the Yankees.
1885. Froude, Oceana, xviii. The rising generation of colonials.
2. Often used ellipt., e.g., for colonial bishop, colonial product, etc., the sb. being supplied by the context.
1886. Daily News, 13 Dec., 2/6. Best skins also sell readily as offered, while the finer colonials have receded slightly.
