Republic
lit. “res publica — public affair”
A state in which power is held by the people through elected representatives, with no hereditary monarch and (typically) a written constitution.
Origin
The Roman Republic (509–27 BCE) gave the model and the name — res publica, 'the public thing,' as opposed to res privata. Power was split among elected magistrates, the Senate, and popular assemblies, all bound by tradition rather than a written constitution. The American founders read Roman history obsessively and modeled their system on it, though they tried to engineer better safeguards against the demagogues who eventually wrecked Rome (Plato had warned about the same in the Republic, c. 375 BCE). Plenty of modern 'republics' are not democracies — 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' being the canonical opposite.
Modern usage
Distinguished from democracy mainly in American civic-education and in libertarian discourse — 'we're a republic, not a democracy' is a recurring talking point. Elsewhere the two words are often used loosely as synonyms. The form (head of state is not a monarch) is what most modern countries officially have, regardless of how democratic they actually are.
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