city

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsɪt.i/ (UK), /ˈsɪt̬.i/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English cite, citie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French cité (“town, city”), earlier citet,^[2][5] from Latin cīvitās (“citizenship; the citizens; the state”) (accusative cīvitātem),^[2][5][3] from cīvis (“citizen, townsman”),^[3][5][6] from Proto-Indo-European *kei- (“to lie; bed, couch; beloved, dear”).^[5][7][8] Barnhart gives as cognates of cīvis Sanskrit शिव (śivá, “trusty, worthy”) and Old English hīwen (“household, family”), and relates the word to home.^[7][4] The loss of Latin -v- is regular in French in some positions; a different development of the Latin word gave Italian città, Spanish ciudad and Portuguese cidade.^[5][9] Merriam-Webster derives the Middle English word from Anglo-French Anglo-Norman cité and Medieval Latin cīvitās.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A town, a borough, especially a walled town and its government; also a cathedral town (before 1200, in Ancrene Riwle).^[7][11][5]

Semantic evolution

Between Latin and English the sense passed from the inhabitants to the place: Latin cīvitās first meant “citizenship, the community of citizens”, and was applied by the Romans to the independent states or tribes of Gaul;^[5][11] the Latin word for “city” was urbs, and cīvitās seems to have replaced it as Rome lost its prestige.^[5][12] The OED calls city “not a native designation”, but at first a somewhat grandiose title used instead of Old English burh (see borough).^[5][11][13] It was distinguished from town by the early 14th century,^[5] and was used of ancient or foreign places of note, as capitals, from about 1380.^[11] The connection with a cathedral grew up under the Norman kings, when episcopal sees were moved to the chief borough of the diocese.^[13][12] The City, of London, dates from the 1550s,^[5][14] and “the business and financial community of the City” from 1621.^[14] In the United States city came to mean an incorporated municipality governed under a charter, by 1843.^[11][10] The adjectival use “of a city, urban” is from about 1300.^[5][14] From the 1940s, originally in American slang, -city has been added to words to mean “a place or state characterized by” something.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – cite, a town, a walled town.^[7][5]
• c. 1300 – as an adjective; a large or important municipality.^[5][14]
• early 14th century – distinguished from town.^[5]
• c. 1375 – cityward.^[7]
• c. 1380 – of ancient or foreign capitals.^[11]
• 1481 – a Greek or Roman city-state.^[14]
• 1550s – the City, of London.^[5][14]
• 1621 – the financial community of the City.^[14]
• 1828 – citified (US).^[2]
• 1843 – an incorporated municipality in the US.^[11]
• 1946 – -city, a place or state of something (US slang).^[14]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A large and important town; a centre of population, commerce and culture.
2. (Britain) A town given the title by charter from the Crown, usually the seat of a bishop or containing a cathedral.
3. (US, Canada) An incorporated municipality with powers set out in a charter granted by the state or province.
4. The inhabitants of a city collectively.
5. (the City) The part of London governed by the Lord Mayor and the Corporation; the financial institutions there.
6. An ancient city-state.

Word family

• cityless
• citylike

Related words

• civic
• civil
• citizen
• civilization
• civility
• home
• borough

Usage notes

In everyday use in New York, the city often means Manhattan to people from the other boroughs.^[15] Northern Californians call San Francisco the City.^[16]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
16. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge