n.
- an extensive group of states ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state.
▸supreme power over several countries:
his dream of empire in Asia Minor.
- a large commercial organization under the control of one person or group.
adj.
(
Empire)
denoting a neoclassical style of furniture and dress fashionable chiefly during the First Empire, the period of Napoleon I's reign as emperor of the French (1804–15).
Etymology
ME: via OFr. from L. imperium, rel. to imperare (see emperor).