municipality
Americannoun
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municipalities
plural
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a city, town, or other district possessing corporate existence and usually its own local government.
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a community under municipal jurisdiction.
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the governing body of such a district or community.
noun
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a city, town, or district enjoying some degree of local self-government
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the governing body of such a unit
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of municipality
From the French word municipalité, dating back to 1780–90. See municipal, -ity
Explanation
If you live in a town or city that has a mayor or other officials who govern it, you live in a municipality. The word municipality comes from the Latin municipium, meaning "free city." A municipality has its own government, but sometimes municipalities join together to share services. For instance, two neighboring municipalities might decide to share a single recycling center in order to cut costs.
Vocabulary lists containing municipality
Just Mercy
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Inherit the Wind
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A Clockwork Orange
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The municipality is classified by the Andalusian government as being at risk from wildfires.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
He explained that data-center decisions are usually made at the local level, and each municipality can negotiate the terms of deals for projects with companies.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 4, 2026
By the following morning, the military had cleared out the residents of the assailants' neighbourhood, displacing more than 3,000 people, according to the municipality.
From Barron's ● Nov. 2, 2026
In 2016, Berkeley became the first municipality in California to drop the voting age to 16 for school board elections, followed by its Alameda County neighbor, Oakland, in 2020.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
Trina Garnett was the youngest of twelve children living in the poorest section of Chester, Pennsylvania, a financially distressed municipality outside of Philadelphia.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
“Many in the market looked beyond national headlines and said ‘a lot of municipalities went and voted against the ability for data centers to be built in their backyard.’”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Data-center projects now look set to face greater policy risk, much of it from states and municipalities and in the form of moratoriums, permitting restrictions, utility-rate changes and added reporting requirements, said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 4, 2026
Years of reports by the auditor-general have highlighted the dire state of most of South Africa's 257 municipalities.
From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026
During the 1980s, it ranked among Israel's more affluent municipalities and hosted the country's largest music festival.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026
Cartographers create fictional landmarks, streets, and municipalities and place them obscurely into their maps.
From "Paper Towns" by John Green
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
