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I tried looking this up in the thesaurus but all the synonyms for republican here are nouns. I was wondering if there were any synonyms for the adjective republican in the sense ‘relating to a republic’ (rather than as the name of a US political party).

Thanks for your time : )

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    Please add a sentence where you would use the adjective you are looking for. – user66974 Aug 1 '16 at 5:39
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    I've added an important detail, based on your earlier question (which you deleted before asking this one), namely that the sense you're looking for is ‘relating to a republic’ (not capitalised), rather than the more specific sense of the Republican Party in the US (usually capitalised). Please feel free to rollback the edit if the two questions are not actually related in this way. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 1 '16 at 6:33
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As counter-intuitive as it might sound to observers of American politics, democratic might work as a synonym.

democratic: Relating to or supporting democracy or its principles

Republican is even listed among the possible synonyms of democratic, although the list contains less fitting words. (Link) Since republics (should) have a government which uses elected officials representing the citizen body (Wikipedia) this is not that surprising.

However, it is a linguistic synonym, which might seem strange in America with the Republicans and Democrats being as partisan opposites as they are today.

EDIT: Regarding democracies and republics

Today the term republic usually refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, who serves for a limited term; in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies, with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.(Wikipedia)

However, these constitutional monarchies are sometimes dubbed crowned republics:

A crowned republic may thus be a form of parliamentary republic, while officially it may be called a constitutional monarchy.

Bonus (same Wikipedia article):

The novelist and essayist H. G. Wells used the term to describe the United Kingdom, as did Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem Idylls of the King.

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  • Being democratic is orthagonal to being republican; there are numerous monarchies in the world that are democratic, and numerous republics that are not democratic. – choster Aug 31 '16 at 14:09
  • @choster such monarchies are also called crowned republics – Helmar Aug 31 '16 at 14:49
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    I don't think you've addressed my core objection. An advocate for a republic is not necessarily an advocate for democracy, and vice versa. Yes, there are countries like Norway or New Zealand which are highly democratic and which function almost like republics despite their constitutional monarchies. But there are as many counterexamples. Countless dictators and military juntas overthrew monarchs, with no effect on their love of democracy. And plenty of democrats in Thailand and Swaziland are opposed to republicanism. – choster Aug 31 '16 at 15:54
  • @choster I agree that it's fuzzy. The main problem with the words is that both are highly appropriated. Just look at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It's neither democratic, nor a republic. Republicans and democrats (not talking US parties here) are contra absolute monarchies. They both promote some sort of government by the people. I feel that the degree of support and the degree of the involvement of the citizens cannot be properly encompassed in any word. – Helmar Aug 31 '16 at 20:31
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Personally, I think that "representative" is the best synonym. However, this words takes upon itself different meanings depending on context. I am giving the word I feel is the best, generally speaking.

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