Definition of "metropolis" []

• A major city, especially the chief city of a country or region: Chicago, the metropolis of the Midwest. (noun)
• A city or an urban area regarded as the center of a specific activity: a great cultural metropolis. (noun)
• Ecclesiastical The chief see of a metropolitan bishop. (noun)
• The mother city or country of an overseas colony, especially in ancient Greece. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The term metropolis comes from two Greek words meter and polis, or "mother-city.""
• ""If anything could spoil his temper, it is a day in what he calls the metropolis of Philistinism.""
• "Vespasian marched against "Gadara," which he calls the metropolis of"