Etymologically
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city

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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
  • 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