metropolis

Borrowed from Late Latin mētropolis, from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “mother city”), from μήτηρ (mḗtēr, “mother”) + πόλις (pólis, “city (state)”).^[1] By surface analysis, metro- +‎ -polis. Doublet of metropole.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɪˈtɹɒ.pə.lɪs/^[1]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /məˈtɹɑ.pə.lɪs/^[2]
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /məˈtɹɑ.pə.ləs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒpəlɪs
• Hyphenation: me‧tro‧po‧lis

metropolis (plural metropolises or metropoleis or metropoles or metropolizes or metropoli or (obsolete) metropolisses or (obsolete) metropolis's)

1. (history, especially Ancient Greece) The mother (founding) polis (city state) of a colony.

   Synonyms: mother city, metropole

   • 2010, James Mahoney, Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative Perspective:

     Colonies certainly did not become "clones" of their metropolises, but it is equally false that their colonial heritages were not influenced by the organization of the metropolises.

2. A large, busy city, especially as the main city in an area or country or as distinguished from surrounding rural areas.

   Synonym: metropolitan city

   Hyponyms: megacity, megalopolis

   Holonym: metropolitan area

   Coordinate term: capital city

   • 1819, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, Rural Life in England:

     An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting.

   • 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 52:

     [I]t would not be very much less absurd for someone to write about New York City after having spent only a few years or a few decades in this metropolis of inexhaustible adventure, of terrifying emotional fecundity, of uncapturable character.

   • 1983, “Sleeper in Metropolis”, in Changing Places, performed by Anne Clark:

     Love is dead in metropolis / All contact through glove or partition

   • 2008, “Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros”, performed by Flight of the Conchords:

     They call me the Hiphopopotamus / Flows that glow like phosphorous / Popping off the top of this esophagus / Rocking this metropolis

3. (Orthodox Christianity) The see of a metropolitan bishop, ranking above its suffragan diocesan bishops.

   Synonym: archbishopric

4. (ecology) A generic focus in the distribution of plants or animals.

• simple root

From Latin mētropolis, from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “mother city”).

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: me‧tro‧po‧lis

metropolis f (plural metropolissen, diminutive metropolisje n)

1. metropolis

• metropool

• metropoliet
• metropolitaans

Late Latin, from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “a mother city or state”), from μητρο- (mētro-, “mother-”) + πόλις (pólis, “city”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /meːˈtro.po.lis/, [meːˈt̪rɔpɔlʲɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /meˈtro.po.lis/, [meˈt̪rɔːpolis]

mētropolis f (genitive mētropolis or mētropoleōs or mētropolios); third declension

1. metropolis

Third-declension noun (Greek-type, i-stem, i-stem).

¹Found sometimes in Medieval and New Latin. The accusative singular mētropolem and the ablative singular mētropole occur in Medieval and New Latin.

• mētropolītānus

• Mētropolis

• Catalan: metròpoli
• French: métropole
• Italian: metropoli
• Piedmontese: metròpol
• Portuguese: metrópole
• Spanish: metrópoli
• English: metropolis, metropole
• German: Metropolis

• māter

• “metropolis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• metropolis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 974.
• metropolis in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “metropolis”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “metropolis”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
• “metropolis”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
  “colonia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

metropolis

1. plural of metropol

metròpolis m (Cyrillic spelling метро̀полис)

1. A metropolis