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: Union, Federal]
2: of trade unions; "the union movement"; "union negotiations"; "a union-shop clause in the contract" [ant: nonunion] (noun)
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: Union, 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]