When was the word "country" first used to mean a political entity and which areas would then have been referred to as "countries"?

lanfranco

Here's some etymological information. According to the OED, the word shows up as "contree" in English (derived from Old French "cuntree") in the 14th century. Chaucer uses it, in the Tale of Sir Thopas (ca. 1385), though it refers to Flanders. Far earlier, it referred to a geographical place, different from whatever place the speaker/writer had come from (from Latin "contra," meaning "against" or "opposite to"). It seems to have kept this meaning somewhat through the 15th century, as "countries" were still coalescing (and to some extent, in Britain, seems to have been used interchangeably with "county" in the sense of "district"). But in Nicholas Grimald's 1553 translation of Cicero, the phrase appears, "to bee of one countree, of one nation, of one language." Grimald was English. I don't think there's any doubt as to what he meant. The French, on the other hand, seem to have used "Pays de France" divisions) to refer to their conception of nationhood as early as the 9th century. http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=country Aug 21 05, 8:40 PM

gmackematix

Well I never realised "country" came from "contra" but sure enough my Concise Oxford says it comes from Mediaeval Latin "contrata terra" meaning land lying opposite. Aug 22 05, 10:57 AM