Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Polite, refined, and often elegant in manner.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or belonging to a city or town; urban.
- Civil; courteous; polite; usually, in a stronger sense, very polite; suave; elegant or refined: as, a man of urbane manners.
- Synonyms Civil, Courteous, etc. See polite.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Courteous in manners; polite; refined; elegant.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing a high degree of refinement and the assurance that comes from wide social experience
Etymologies
- Existing since the sixteenth century in the sense of “appropriate to a city”: from French urbain or from Latin urbanus (from urbs, “city”). (Wiktionary)
- Latin urbānus, of a city; see urban. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Carrie Vaughn just created the term urbane fantasy, I love it.”
“A Mini is a car that is bandy, diminutive and urbane, which is to say, good on gas and easy to park.”
The Wall Street Journal: What Part of 'Mini' Did You Not Grasp, BMW?
“Bausch never succumbs to trippy New Age stuff that this set might suggest, however, and instead often engages her players in urbane games with tables and chairs and other hallmarks of daily life incongruous to the deep blue sea.”
“Aziz became known as the urbane and kindly public face of Saddam's regime in the lead-up to the first Gulf War in 1991 and the allied invasion of 2003.”
“Inevitably, it's somewhere between the two, and this year the emphasis is on what you'd have to call urbane, slightly retro funk-pop the very good Metronomy; headliners Two Door Cinema Club.”
“Those who have met him recall his urbane charm, vigorous handshakes, jokes and contagious laughter, but also his short temper, especially towards "arrogant" journalists.”
The Guardian: Laurent Gbagbo: Democratic martyr turned dictator | David Smith
“The Parasol Protectorate series totally fits the idea of urbane fantasy.”
“The so called urbane Bangalorian indulges in spitting as much as the villager who is visiting a city for the first time.”
“-- "Without being a wizard, I should say your relative was rather a disagreeable person, -- not what is called urbane and amiable, -- in fact, a brute.”
“The woman is described as having a posture that is "distinctly feline" (TW18) From their description alone, they are seen as far more animalistic, wild and uncontrolled than the "urbane" (TW18) Cullens, although they are capable of cursory civility.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘urbane’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 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 11250 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Verbal_Advantage
paraphrase, ostensible, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 38 more...
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try to use now and then
exacerbate, inveterate, obviate, verbose, exasperate, disingenuous, squit, ingenue, Opiate, opioid, revile, decrepit and 14 more...
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Banes
bugbane, fleabane, daisy fleabane, wolfbane, wolfsbane, hare's-bane, wolf's-bane, bear's-bane, badger's-bane, henbane, ratsbane, dogbane and 15 more...
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Hit Parade GRE
Princeton Review words
abscond, aberrant, alacrity, anomaly, approbation, arduous, assuage, audacious, austere, axiomatic, canonical, capricious and 287 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 491 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3027 more... -
Novel Words
Concise words to sprinkle in my prose.
apropos, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, antinomy, sanguine, glyph, taciturn, aesthetic, truncate, coffee and 143 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 1008 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for urbane.
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