metropolitan

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a major city: crowded metropolitan streets; a metropolitan newspaper.
2. adj. Of or constituting a large city or urbanized area, including adjacent suburbs and towns: the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area; a metropolitan county.
3. adj. Of, relating to, or constituting the home territory of an imperial or colonial state.
4. adj. Of or relating to an ecclesiastical metropolitan.
5. n. A citizen of a metropolis, especially one who displays urbane characteristics, attitudes, and values.
6. n. In the Western Christian churches, a bishop with provincial powers, with some authority over suffragan bishops.
7. n. Eastern Orthodox Church A bishop who is head of an ecclesiastical province and ranks next below the patriarch.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Of or pertaining to a metropolis, in any sense; residing in or connected with a metropolis: as, metropolitan enterprise; metropolitan police.
2. Of or pertaining to the chief see of an ecclesiastical province: as, a metropolitan church.
3. n. A citizen of the mother city or parent state of a colony. See metropolis, 1.
4. n. Eccles.: In the early Christian church, the bishop of the municipal capital of a province or eparchy, who had a general ecclesiastical superintendence over the bishops and churches of his province, continued, ordained, and when necessary excommunicated the bishops, and convened and presided over the provincial synods. The superiority in rank of the bishops of the principal sees was so early established that many authorities have held that the office of metropolitan (including also under this title the primates of patriarchal sees) was of apostolic origin. In the developed organization under the Christian emperors a metropolitan ranked above an ordinary bishop and below a patriarch or exarch. In medieval times the power of most of the metropolitans in western countries became much diminished, while that of the diocesan bishops and the pope was relatively increased. See archbishop and primate.
5. n. In modern usage, in the Roman Catholic and other episcopal churches, any archbishop who has bishops under his authority.
6. n. In the Greek Church, the bishop of the municipal capital of a province, who is in rank intermediate between a patriarch and a bishop or titular archbishop.
7. n. A chief city; a metropolis.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Of or pertaining to the capital or principal city of a country.
2. adj. (Eccl.) Of, pertaining to, or designating, a metropolitan or the presiding bishop of a country or province, his office, or his dignity.
3. n. The superior or presiding bishop of a country or province.
4. n. (Lat. Church.) An archbishop.
5. n. (Gr. Church) A bishop whose see is a civil metropolis. His rank is intermediate between that of an archbishop and a patriarch.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a person who lives in a metropolis
2. adj. relating to or characteristic of a metropolis
3. n. in the Eastern Orthodox Church this title is given to a position between bishop and patriarch; equivalent to archbishop in western Christianity