The term republic was initially coined by Anglican bishop John Hooper in his 1548 publication Declaration of the Ten Holy Commandments. In his work, he spelled it as republick, a spelling that was predominant for a period (along with variations like republique and less common forms such as republict, repoblik, and reipublick) until republic became the standard spelling in the 18th century. The term was borrowed from Middle French, which in turn borrowed it from Latin respublica, a term that originally referred to “the state” in a general sense rather than denoting a specific form of government. The Latin term was a combination of two words: res, meaning “entity” or “affair”, and publia, the feminine form of an adjective meaning “public” (thus, a republic is an “entity of the public”). The earlier meaning of res was “property”, stemming from Proto-Indo-European rehis, meaning “wealth”. On the other hand, publia has its roots in Proto-Italic poplos, meaning “army”.
