Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A major city, especially the chief city of a country or region: Chicago, the metropolis of the Midwest.
- n. A city or an urban area regarded as the center of a specific activity: a great cultural metropolis.
- n. Ecclesiastical The chief see of a metropolitan bishop.
- n. The mother city or country of an overseas colony, especially in ancient Greece.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In ancient Greece, the mother city or parent state of a colony, as Corinth of Corcyra and Syracuse, or Phocæa of Massalia (Marseilles), the colony being independent, but usually maintaining close relations with the metropolis.
- n. Later, a chief city; a seat of government; in the early church, the see or chief city of an ecclesiastical province.
- n. In modern usage: Specifically, the see or seat of a metropolitan bishop.
- n. The capital city or seat of government of a country, as London, Paris, or Washington
- n. A chief city; a city holding the first rank in any respect, within a certain territorial range: as, New York is the commercial metropolis of the United States.
- n. In zoögeog. and botany, the place of most numerous representation of a species by individuals, or of a genus by species; the focus of a generic area. See generic.
Wiktionary
- n. history The mother (founding) polis (city state) of a colony, especially in the Ancient Greek/Hellenistic world.
- n. A large, busy city, especially as the main city in an area or country or as distinguished from surrounding rural areas.
- n. canon law The see of a metropolitan archbishop, ranking above its suffragan diocesan bishops.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The mother city; the chief city of a kingdom, state, or country.
- n. (Eccl.) The seat, or see, of the metropolitan, or highest church dignitary.
- n. Any large city.
WordNet 3.0
- n. people living in a large densely populated municipality
- n. a large and densely populated urban area; may include several independent administrative districts
Etymologies
- First attested in Middle English: from Late Latin mētropolis, from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, "mother city"), from μήτηρ (mḗtēr, "mother") + πόλις (pólis, "city (state)"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English metropol, from Late Latin mētropolis, mother-city, from Greek : mētēr, mētr-, mother; see māter- in Indo-European roots + polis, city; see pelə-3 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term metropolis comes from two Greek words meter and polis, or "mother-city.”
“If anything could spoil his temper, it is a day in what he calls the metropolis of Philistinism.”
“Vespasian marched against "Gadara," which he calls the metropolis of”
Collected Essays, Volume V Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
“A second and more artificial cause of the growth of a metropolis is the residence of a monarch, the expense of a luxurious court, and the tributes of dependent provinces.”
“Our town has less than 10k people, nearest metropolis is over 2 hours away.”
“The installation moves from harrowing recordings of emergency calls at the time of the tragedy to lovely images of Beijing-born master calligrapher Gong Fagen at work; there are ghost stories, reconstructions of pre-war Shanghai movies, and flickering images of Pudong, the Shanghai district that has become China's hub of crony capitalism (one economist recently described Shanghai as "the world's most successful Potemkin metropolis" – meaning there is little behind the moneyed facade).”
“Julianne Moore (great as always) leads the cast as the sole sighted woman after an unnamed metropolis is gripped in a mysterious blindness epidemic.”
“Most of the time this bustling metropolis is a model for organised chaos, and our ethnic, religious and other communities mingle freely, be it in business, street sports or our many mixed families.”
“Reading itself, which "loomed for a Shillington child as an immense, remote, menacing, and glamorous metropolis," is a remarkably recognizable Brewer, with its depiction over the Rabbit series offering a nearly perfect rendering of the actual city's respectable past, attempts at renewal and hardscrabble present.”
“And Yarmouth, that great metropolis, is about twice the population of the whole of Lurgan, let alone the townland where where last night's killing occurred.”
Pathetic army excuse about base security does nothing to answer the questions
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘metropolis’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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Words I like
There's nothing more to this list, really.
lily, defenestrate, gloaming, aesthetically, melody, translucent, semiotics, wistful, linear, origami, plethora, schadenfreude and 92 more...
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wanderstar's Words
superlative, mulish, mumps, catatonic, aquiline, clandestine, phantasmagoria, chryselephantine, microfiche, mutineer, reprobate, ruthless and 312 more...
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old faves
ones I already liked
vacuole, organelle, debauchle, voluptuous, spry, cattywampus, obscure, occlude, occult, celtic, voracious, ardently and 133 more...
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Favorite Words
quixotic, assonance, palindrome, plebeian, mezzanine, propinquity, etymology, antihero, intrepid, refractions, lawless, sesquipedalian and 237 more...
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favorite words
ennui, bonhomie, eschew, liaison, serendipity, lovely, dusk, kitten, epitome, sexy, beloved, darling and 396 more...
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i_am_scifi's Words
asshat, charlatan, podcast, geek, amazonian, parlez, defile, menagerie, perplex, gotham, metropolis, ghoul and 131 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2037 more...
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Pleasing words
A list of miscellaneous words, fitting in no exact theme, that I happen to enjoy.
portmanteau, aesthetic, deviation, conglomerate, treachery, soluble, bildungsroman, soliloquy, irrevocable, effervescent, phrontistery, aeipathy and 180 more...
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Locations
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for metropolis.

treeseed In DC Comics, the Earth home of Superman Feb 6, 2008