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city

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: City

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English cite, derived from Old French cite, derived from Late Latin cīvitātem (“city”), in Classical Latin "citizenry", derived from cīvis (“fellow-citizen”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱey- (“lie down; settle”). Cognate with Old English hīwan pl (“members of one's household, servants”). See hewe. Doublet of civitas. Mostly displaced native Old English burg, whence Modern English borough.

Pronunciation

Noun

city (plural cities)

  2. A large settlement, bigger than a town; sometimes with a specific legal definition, depending on the place.
    São Paulo is the largest city in South America.
    • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 147, column 2:
      Ah, knovv you not the Citie fauours them, / And they haue troupes of Souldiers at their beck?
    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
    • 2013 September 7, “The multiplexed metropolis”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8852:
      But clever cities will not necessarily be better ones.
    • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:
      One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.
    • 2020 July 15, Mike Brown talks to Paul Clifton, “Leading London's "hidden heroes"”, in Rail, page 42:
      All our stations have changed. We have to constrain numbers. We have to mandate face coverings. These are massive changes in what is a public transport city. This is not a car city.
    • 2022 October 17, Ivana Kottasová, “‘Kamikaze’ drones are the latest threat for Ukraine. Here’s what we know”, in CNN‎:
      The Ukrainian government says Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and other cities have suffered a barrage of drone attacks, and pleaded with Western countries to step up their assistance in the face of the new challenge. […] But Ukraine claimed its forces had shot down one of these drones for the first time last month near the city of Kupyansk in Kharkiv.
  3. (UK, historical in Ireland and Commonwealth) A settlement granted special status by royal charter or letters patent; traditionally, a settlement with a cathedral regardless of size.
    • 1976, Cornelius P. Darcy, The Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Lancashire, 1760-1860, Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 20:
      Manchester, incorporated in 1838, was made the centre of a bishopric in 1847 and became a city in 1853. Liverpool was transformed into a city by Royal Charter when the new diocese of Liverpool was created in 1880.
    • 2014, Graham Rutt, Cycling Britain's Cathedrals Volume 1, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 307:
      St Davids itself is the smallest city in Great Britain, with a population of less than 2,000.
  4. (Australia) The central business district; downtown.
    I'm going into the city today to do some shopping.
  5. (slang) A large amount of something (used after the noun).
    It’s video game city in here!

Hypernyms

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Place names ending in City

English terms starting with “city”

Descendants

  • → French: City
  • → German: City
  • → Italian: city
  • → Swedish: city
  • → Russian: си́ти (síti)

Translations

See also

Further reading

Anagrams

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Czech

Pronunciation

Noun

city

  1. nominative/accusative/vocative/instrumental plural of cit

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowed from English city.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsiti/, [ˈs̠it̪i]
  • Rhymes: -iti
  • Syllabification(key): ci‧ty
  • Hyphenation(key): ci‧ty

Noun

city

  2. synonym of liikekeskusta (“central business district”) (central area of a city)

Declension

More information nominative, genitive ...
More information first-person singular possessor, singular ...

Derived terms

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Italian

Middle English

Swedish

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