A republic is usually defined in positive terms: any government that is determined somehow by the public. That's basically equivalent to your definition that it

A republic is usually defined in positive terms: any government that is determined somehow by the public. That's basically equivalent to your definition that it is any government that is not private property to be handed down by heredity. Some people use the term "republic" to imply "merely a republic" in the sense that the country in question is not a direct democracy. I am not sure whether this betrays that they think of government as having one dimension of variety from hereditary monarchs to direct democracy, whether they think that republics and democracies are incompatible forms of government, or whether they realize that democracy is merely one form of a republic and choose to simplify for effect when they say things like "The USA is not a democracy, it is a republic." As usual, wikipedia is pretty good on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic