micronation

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European*mey-der.?
2. Ancient Greekμῑκρός (mīkrós)
3. Ancient Greekμῑκρο- (mīkro-)
4. Englishmicro-
5. Proto-Indo-European*ǵenh₁-
6. Proto-Indo-European*ǵénh₁tis
7. Proto-Italic*gnātiō
8. Latinnātiō
9. Old Frenchnacion
10. Middle Englishnacioun
11. Englishnation
12. English todaymicronation

From micro- (prefix meaning ‘very small’) + nation (“country, sovereign state; historically constituted, stable community of people, formed based on a common economic life, ethnicity, language, religion, and/or territory”). Sense 1 (“non-autonomous entity that claims to be a sovereign state”) was coined by the editors of the The State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) in a March 11, 1973, article (see the quotation) which republished a January 21, 1973, article by the American journalist Philip J. Hilts (1947–2022) published in Potomac Magazine, the Sunday supplement to The Washington Post, with alterations. The original article referred to the unrecognized political entities listed in the Ephemeral States file, a collection of physical micronational records maintained by the Office of the Geographer of the United States Department of State, launched in 1933. It did not contain the word micronation; this only appeared in the State Journal version of the article.

First known use, by meaning

• from 1973 A non-autonomous entity, generally small and having few residents, which claims to be a sovereign state and mimics the actions of a state (with varying degrees of seriousness), but lacks any legal recognition and exists only in theory or in the mind of its creator; a micronational entity.