metropolis

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin mētropolis (“mother city; capital; see of a metropolitan bishop”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which the OED, calling it classical Latin, finds in inscriptions from the late 2nd century, and in the Christian sense from the 4th;^[8] the OED also counts the Greek word as a direct source.^[8] The Latin is from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “mother city of a colony, capital city”),^{[8][9][10][11]} a compound of μήτηρ (mḗtēr, “mother”) and πόλις (pólis, “city”).^{[8][9][10][5]} The Greek word for mother is distantly related to mother, and the word for city is the source of police, policy and politics.^[10][9] Middle English had the shorter metropol (“chief city”), from Old French and Latin, recorded in the poem “Saint Erkenwald” (about 1386).^[12][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The seat of a metropolitan bishop: 1516, in The Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande.^[8] Barnhart dates it to 1535 and Etymonline to the 1530s.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Before 1568, in Ascham's Scholemaster, it was also the mother city or parent state of a Greek colony, the original sense of the Greek word.^[8][2][9] The sense "chief city of a country or province" had already been carried by Middle English metropol in the late 14th century, as when the poem “Saint Erkenwald” calls London "þe metropol, and þe mayster-toun",^[12][2][3] and by metropolitan from the mid 15th century;^[3] metropolis itself has it from 1584,^[8][3] and Barnhart's first record is from 1590, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine.^[2] It then spread to any large, busy city,^[8][13] and since 1599, in Nashe, to a chief centre of some activity or quality.^[8] In biology it was used between 1826 and 1871 for the area where a species is most common.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the mother city; the chief city of any country or district".^[14] Weekley cites the jocular imitations Cottonopolis for Manchester and Porkopolis for Chicago.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1386 – Middle English metropol, chief city.^[12][2]
• 1516 – the see of a metropolitan bishop.^[8]
• before 1568 – the mother city of a Greek colony, in Ascham.^[8][2]
• 1584 – the chief city of a country; a capital.^[8]
• 1599 – a chief centre of some activity, in Nashe.^[8]
• 1826–1871 – in biology, the area where a species is most common (obsolete).^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The chief city of a country or region, often its capital; any large, busy city: Lagos grew into a sprawling metropolis.^[13][7][8]
2. A main centre of some activity: a metropolis of the fashion trade.^[13][8]
3. (Christian Church) The see of a metropolitan bishop; the chief see of an ecclesiastical province.^[13][7][8]
4. (historical) The mother city or parent state of a colony, especially in ancient Greece.^[7][8][5]

Word family

• metro
• metropolitan

Related words

• megalopolis
• mother
• police
• policy
• politics

Usage notes

The plural is metropolises;^[13][7] the Shorter Oxford also records metropoli.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray