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).