A banana republic is a colony controlled through economic domination

Evidence

In popular usage (clothing company aside), the term nowadays mostly calls to mind buffoonlike Third World despots in the mold of Woody Allen’s comedy Bananas. We tend to forget its original meaning. After living in Honduras, the writer O. Henry coined the phrase to refer to weak, marginally independent countries facing overwhelming foreign economic and political domination. In other words, a banana republic is a colony in all but name. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 279

Categorization

• DEFINE: Recovers the precise original meaning of ‘banana republic,’ tracing it to O. Henry’s coinage about Honduras.
• CANDY: A tidy origin story for a common phrase that most people get wrong.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 279