Union
     adj 1: being of or having to do with the northern United States and
            those loyal to the Union during the Civil War; "Union
            soldiers"; "Federal forces"; "a Federal infantryman"
            [syn: {Federal}]
     2: of trade unions; "the union movement"; "union negotiations";
        "a union-shop clause in the contract" [ant: {nonunion}]
     n 1: an organization of employees formed to bargain with the
          employer; "you have to join the union in order to get a
          job" [syn: {labor union}, {trade union}, {trades union},
           {brotherhood}]
     2: the United States (especially the northern states during the
        American Civil War); "he has visited every state in the
        Union"; "Lee hoped to detach Maryland from the Union";
        "the North's superior resources turned the scale" [syn: {North}]
     3: the act of pairing a male and female for reproductive
        purposes; "the casual couplings of adolescents"; "the
        mating of some species occurs only in the spring" [syn: {coupling},
         {mating}, {pairing}, {conjugation}, {sexual union}]
     4: the state of being joined or united or linked; "there is
        strength in union" [syn: {unification}] [ant: {separation}]
     5: the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for
        life (or until divorce); "a long and happy marriage"; "God
        bless this union" [syn: {marriage}, {matrimony}, {spousal
        relationship}, {wedlock}]
     6: healing process involving the growing together of the edges
        of a wound or the growing together of broken bones [syn: {conglutination}]
     7: a political unit formed from previously independent people
        or organizations; "the Soviet Union"
     8: a set containing all and only the members of two or more
        given sets; "let C be the union of the sets A and B" [syn:
         {sum}, {join}]
     9: the occurrence of a uniting of separate parts; "lightning
        produced an unusual union of the metals"
     10: a device on a national flag emblematic of the union of two
         or more sovereignties (typically in the upper inner
         corner)
     11: the act of making or becoming a single unit; "the union of
         opposing factions"; "he looked forward to the unification
         of his family for the holidays" [syn: {unification}, {uniting},
          {conjugation}, {jointure}] [ant: {disunion}]
Source: WordNet® 2.0