metropolitan
Americanadjective
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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.
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of or relating to a large city, its surrounding suburbs, and other neighboring communities.
the New York metropolitan area.
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pertaining to or constituting a mother country.
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pertaining to an ecclesiastical metropolis.
noun
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an inhabitant of a metropolis.
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a person who has the sophistication, fashionable taste, or other habits and manners associated with those who live in a metropolis.
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Eastern Church. the head of an ecclesiastical province.
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an archbishop in the Church of England.
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Roman Catholic Church. an archbishop who has authority over one or more suffragan sees.
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(in ancient Greece) a citizen of the mother city or parent state of a colony.
adjective
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of or characteristic of a metropolis
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constituting a city and its suburbs
the metropolitan area
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of, relating to, or designating an ecclesiastical metropolis
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of or belonging to the home territories of a country, as opposed to overseas territories
metropolitan France
noun
Other Word Forms
- intermetropolitan adjective
- metropolitanism noun
- nonmetropolitan adjective
- supermetropolitan adjective
- unmetropolitan adjective
Etymology
Origin of metropolitan
1300–50; Middle English < Late Latin mētropolītānus of, belonging to a metropolis < Greek mētropolī́t ( ēs ) ( metropolis, -ite 1 ) + Latin -ānus -an
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.
But the scale of the demonstrations — stretching from major international metropolitan hubs to small towns in rural America — signals a level of mobilization that is increasingly difficult to ignore.
From Salon • Mar. 28, 2026
The model is also spreading well beyond big metropolitan markets.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026
In metropolitan Denmark, the row over the vast Arctic island has however not been central in the campaign.
From Barron's • Mar. 24, 2026
They are standing for a mixture of district, metropolitan, unitary and county councils.
From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026
One study indicates that as late as 1970, more than 70 percent of all blacks working in metropolitan areas held blue-collar jobs.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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.
