Chicago
Americannoun
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Judy Judy Cohen, born 1939, U.S. artist, author, and educator.
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a city in NE Illinois, on Lake Michigan: second largest city in the U.S.
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a river formed in Chicago that flows through downtown and, as engineered, to the Des Plaines River: part of the Illinois Waterway.
noun
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Carl Sandburg, in his poem “Chicago,” called the city the “Hog Butcher for the World” because of Chicago's heavy involvement in the meatpacking industry.
During the time of Prohibition, Chicago was controlled by gangsters, Al Capone being the most notorious. Gangster warfare continued long after this particularly violent period.
Originally called the “Windy City” because the city bragged about the 1893 World Expo that was held there. The term has since come to refer to the strong northern winds that blow off the lake in the winter.
Chicago's downtown is referred to as the “Loop” because it is enclosed by elevated railways, called the “El.”
For many years the second largest city in the United States, before being displaced by Los Angeles, and therefore referred to as the “Second City.”
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.
Turner spent her first five seasons with Phoenix, then one with Chicago before going to the Fever last year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Her exposure to the sport possibly came on an 1893 trip to Chicago.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Lehigh Acres sprang up more than 70 years ago when wealthy Chicago businessman Lee Ratner and some partners began buying thousands of acres of ranchland and eventually divided it into more than 100,000 residential lots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
They have recently completed sweeps against the AL’s three best teams, the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
According to shirts, there are protests taking place in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Definitions 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.
