metropolitan

[me-truh-pol-i-tn]

adjective

1. of, noting, or characteristic of a metropolis or its inhabitants, especially in culture, sophistication, or in accepting and combining a wide variety of people, ideas, etc.

2. of or relating to a large city, its surrounding suburbs, and other neighboring communities.

   the New York metropolitan area.

3. pertaining to or constituting a mother country.

4. pertaining to an ecclesiastical metropolis.

noun

1. an inhabitant of a metropolis.

2. a person who has the sophistication, fashionable taste, or other habits and manners associated with those who live in a metropolis.

3. Eastern Church.,  the head of an ecclesiastical province.

4. an archbishop in the Church of England.

5. Roman Catholic Church.,  an archbishop who has authority over one or more suffragan sees.

6. (in ancient Greece) a citizen of the mother city or parent state of a colony.

metropolitan

/ ˌmɛtrəˈpɒlɪtən /

adjective

1. of or characteristic of a metropolis

2. constituting a city and its suburbs

   the metropolitan area

3. of, relating to, or designating an ecclesiastical metropolis

4. of or belonging to the home territories of a country, as opposed to overseas territories

   metropolitan France

noun

1. 1. Eastern Churches the head of an ecclesiastical province, ranking between archbishop and patriarch

   2. Church of England an archbishop

   3. RC Church an archbishop or bishop having authority in certain matters over the dioceses in his province

Other Word Forms

• metropolitanism noun
• intermetropolitan adjective
• nonmetropolitan adjective
• supermetropolitan adjective
• unmetropolitan adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of metropolitan¹

1300–50; Middle English < Late Latin mētropolītānus of, belonging to a metropolis < Greek mētropolī́t ( ēs ) ( metropolis, -ite ¹ ) + Latin -ānus -an

Example Sentences

She represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which consists of four-and-a-half eastern counties, ranging from rural farmland to the highly urban, Kansas City metropolitan area.

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Currently, multiple companies such as Serve, Coco and Starship operate robots in various parts of metropolitan Los Angeles with plans for more bots underway.

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California has the nation’s largest South Asian population, with Los Angeles being home to the fourth largest such population of any metropolitan area, according to the South Asian Network.

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Indeed, to most Americans in the leftward and more metropolitan half of the population, all of this looked like a process of irreversible and irresistible change.

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The metropolitan region of Happy Valley — which includes Orem as well as Provo, home of Brigham Young University — is often listed at the top of several national rankings: most religious, best-performing economically.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• cosmopolitan 
• urban 
• urbane