Definition of "imperial city" []

• Under the first German empire, a city having no head but the emperor. (adjective)

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "During Mandras 'absence Pelagia had found her way down to Kyria Drosoula's house almost every day, enraptured by tales of the imperial city of Byzantium and of life on the Black Sea amongst the infidels, and in that small, fishy, but immaculate house by the quayside they had comforted each other with words that, however deeply meant, had by now become clichés in every household in Europe."
• "The Vienna Congress made Frankfort a free imperial city of the new German Confederation and the seat of the Federal Diet, which meant for the city great political prestige and brilliant possibilities from a social point of view."
• "He had a high reputation for eloquence, and the popularity of St. Chrysostom's memory among the people of the imperial city may have influenced the Emperor's choice of another priest from Antioch to be court bishop."