From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishnation stateˌnation ˈstate noun [countable] PGSANa nation that is a politically independent country European union is seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the nation state.
Examples from the Corpus
nation state• We have been a nation state for a very long time.• This is not to say, however, that popular sovereignty requires a nation state.• The individual nation state is often therefore presented as a self-contained unit, analytically prior to its international relations.• On the one hand they are rebuilding in Berlin the grandiose capital of a restored nation state.• But it is only with the development of the nation state that nationalism comes into existence.• The very concept assumes the existence of a higher power than that of the nation state.• The first third of the book is a sustained polemic against the myth of competitiveness when applied to the nation state. 