How to Use colony in a Sentence

colony

noun
  • Massachusetts was one of the original 13 British colonies that later became the United States.
  • These polyp groups are called colonies.
    — Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 5 Sep. 2025
  • House ants trail scents across the home to alert their colony.
    — Eva Flowe june 25, Charlotte Observer, 25 June 2026
  • What would a human colony look like?
    — Alan Bradley, Space.com, 21 Feb. 2026
  • People packed like a seal colony.
    — Jonny Thomson, Big Think, 10 Sep. 2025
  • If that builds up in your bin, that too can wipe out your colony.
    — Megan Leonhardt, Fortune, 25 Apr. 2023
  • Trout lilies often grow in large colonies.
    — Sheryl De Vore, Chicago Tribune, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Plants spread by rhizome to form loose colonies.
    — Kim Toscano, Southern Living, 19 Aug. 2025
  • All members of the colony dine on the acorns later.
    — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Like wasps and bees, ants are social and live in a colony with one or more queens.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 23 Sep. 2025
  • Like wasps and bees, ants are social and live in a colony with one or more queens.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 24 May 2026
  • His colony of fire ants was plotting an escape.
    — Katherine Laidlaw, HubSpot, 19 Sep. 2025
  • Photos show the colony from afar and one spider up close.
    — Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Some colonies contain more than a thousand wasps.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 1 Sep. 2025
  • These are prime real estate for ant colonies.
    — Charlotte Maracina, USA Today, 30 Apr. 2026
  • Wild turkeys will also dust bathe in the soft dirt around ant colonies.
    — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 July 2025
  • How central were the thirteen colonies here?
    — Daniel Immerwahr, New Yorker, 4 May 2026
  • Ants need to defend their colony, seek food and take care of offspring.
    — Discover Magazine, 13 Mar. 2023
  • For starters, both a queen and a king are needed to start a termite colony.
    — Elizabeth Preston, New York Times, 5 May 2023
  • Griner had been sentenced to nine years and moved to a penal colony last month.
    — Wire Reports, oregonlive, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Dense colonies of aphids can be found along stems or on the undersides of leaves.
    — Tim Johnson, Chicago Tribune, 9 July 2023
  • There, he’s put under arrest, and the colony’s men go to bail him out.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2023
  • Once a colony forms, more ants will follow and the colony will start to expand.
    — Ashlyn Needham, Southern Living, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Winged, swarmer termites emerge from their current colonies to mate and start new ones close by.
    — Ana Durrani, USA Today, 9 Apr. 2026
  • Inside the colony, there's more space and Griner will have to work eight hours a day.
    — Jason Duaine Hahn, Peoplemag, 10 Aug. 2022
  • The king remains head of state in many former British colonies.
    — Lauren Frayer, NPR, 21 Mar. 2026
  • Then the chicks will be ready to live with the colony and make their zoo debut in the habitat.
    — Brooke Baitinger, Sacramento Bee, 15 May 2024
  • My neighbor in his backyard has a sizeable red ant colony.
    — Soo Kim, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Aug. 2025
  • This will get rid of an existing colony and prevent new ones for months.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 18 June 2026
  • Whether other wasp colonies are around is not always a deal breaker.
    — Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 9 May 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colony.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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