metropolis

Forms

mētropolis f (genitive mētropolis or mētropoleōs or mētropolios); third declension^[1] Besides the genitive mētropolis there is a Greek genitive mētropoleōs;^[2] the accusative is mētropolim or -in and the ablative mētropolī.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “mother city”),^[4][3][1] which is made up of μητρο- (mētro-, “mother”) and πόλις (pólis, “city”).^[1][5] Augustine explained that a city was so called because it was the head and as it were the mother of the others.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears in inscriptions of the Roman East as an honorific title of chief cities, for example of Ancyra in AD 218.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word meant a mother city, from which other cities had been settled, and above all the chief city or capital of a province.^[4][3][6] From the 3rd century it was an official title of cities such as Tyre, Sidon and Sarmizegetusa.^[2] Jerome uses it figuratively, calling something metropolis et arx mentis, “the capital and citadel of the mind”.^[4]

In the Church it came to mean the city of a metropolitan bishop, then the metropolitan church and, as a masculine noun, the metropolitan bishop himself.^[7] Bede calls Canterbury the metropolis of “his whole realm”,^[8] and British writers used it figuratively of Jerusalem.^[8] English borrowed metropolis in the 1530s for the seat of a metropolitan bishop, and used it for a capital city from the 1580s.^[9]

Timeline

• 218 AD – An inscription calls Ancyra metropolis.^[2]
• 238 AD – Sarmizegetusa in Dacia bears the title in an inscription.^[2]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it figuratively.^[4][5]
• 438 AD – The Theodosian Code uses it for the chief city of a province.^[4][5]
• first third of the 8th century – Bede calls Canterbury a metropolis.^[8][5]
• 1530s – English borrows it for the seat of a metropolitan bishop.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mother city, one from which other cities were colonized.^[4][3]
2. The chief city of a province, a capital; an honorific title of cities.^[6][4][2]
3. (figurative) A source; a citadel.^[4][10]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A metropolitan church.^[7]
5. (Medieval Latin; masculine) A metropolitan bishop.^[7]
6. (Medieval Latin, figurative) Jerusalem, as the mother city of believers.^[8]

Word family

• mētropolītānus

Related words

• English metropolis

Usage notes

Mētropolis was also the name of several cities, among them one in Thessaly between Pharsalus and Gomphi that Caesar and Livy mention.^[4][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c d Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.