1. A group of people who leave their native country to form in a new land a settlement subject to, or connected with, the parent nation.
2. Any people or territory separated from but subject to a ruling power.
3. A number of people coming from the same country, or speaking the same language, residing in a foreign country or city, or a particular section of it; enclave: the Polish colony in Israel; the American colony in Paris.
4. Any group of individuals having similar interests, occupations, etc., usually living in a particular locality; community; such as, a colony of artists.
5. An aggregation of bacteria growing together as the descendants of a single cell.
6. Ecologically, a group of organisms of the same kind living or growing in close association.
7. Etymologically, a colony is a "settled land". Latin colere "inhabit, cultivate" refers to someone who settled on a new piece of land and cultivated it and so became a colonus and the land he settled was his colonia.

The German city of Cologne gets its name from Latin colonia; in Roman times it was called Colonia Agrippina, the "settlement" or "colony of Agrippa".

A colony in which a majority of the native population is ruled by a small number of representatives from the controlling nation.