Cities

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Related to Cities: cites, Capital cities

cit·y

(sĭt′ē)

n. pl. cit·ies

1. A center of population, commerce, and culture; a town of significant size and importance.

a. An incorporated municipality in the United States with definite boundaries and legal powers set forth in a charter granted by the state.

b. A Canadian municipality of high rank, usually determined by population but varying by province.

c. A large incorporated town in Great Britain, usually the seat of a bishop, with its title conferred by the Crown.

3. The inhabitants of a city considered as a group.

4. An ancient Greek city-state.

5. Slang Used in combination as an intensive: The playing field was mud city after the big rain.

6. City The financial and commercial center of London. Used with the.

[Middle English cite, from Old French, from Latin cīvitās, from cīvis, citizen; see kei- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cities

citycism

urban attitudes and actions.

conurbation

a densely populated urban area, usually a large city surrounded closely by smaller ones.

cosmopolis

a city inhabited by people of many different nations; a city of international importance. — cosmopolite, n. — cosmopolitan, n., adj.

megalopolis

a densely populated area of continuous extent containing many cities and towns that are separate administrative units.

megalopolitanism

the state or quality of being a megalopolis or like a megalopolis; the phenomenon of the formation of a megalopolis. — megalopolitan, adj.

slumism

the development and growth of slums or substandard dwelling conditions in urban areas.

suburbanism

the views of those who prefer to live in suburbs. — suburbanist, n., adj.

synoecism

a joining together of several towns to form a single community, as in ancient Greece. — synoecy, n. — synoecious, adj.

urbanism

the views of those who prefer to live in cities. — urbanist, n., adj.

urbanology

the study of urban affairs and problems. — urbanologist, n.

urbiculture

the study of and concern with the special practices and problems of city life.

References in classic literature ?

Thus slowly wandering through many peoples and divers cities, did Zarathustra return by round-about roads to his mountains and his cave.

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That he was within the boundary of Torquas, Carthoris was sure, but that there existed there such a wondrous city he never had dreamed, nor had the chronicles of the past even hinted at such a possibility, for the Torquasians were known to live, as did the other green men of Mars, within the deserted cities that dotted the dying planet, nor ever had any green horde built so much as a single edifice, other than the low-walled incubators where their young are hatched by the sun's heat.

Only in the most ancient of our legends and in the mural paintings of the deserted cities of the dead sea-bottoms are depicted such a race of auburn-haired, fair-skinned people.

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Their cities were veritable hothouses, and when I had come within this one my respect and admiration for the scientific and engineering skill of this buried nation was unbounded.

The Marentina atmosphere plant will maintain life indefinitely in the cities of the north pole after all life upon the balance of dying Mars is extinct through the failure of the air supply, should the great central plant again cease functioning as it did upon that memorable occasion that gave me the opportunity of restoring life and happiness to the strange world that I had already learned to love so well.

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"Tell our agents that we have a proposition on foot to connect the different cities for the purpose of personal communication, and in other ways to organize a GRAND TELEPHONIC SYSTEM."

"I saw that if the telephone could talk one mile to-day," he said, "it would be talking a hundred miles to-morrow." And he persisted, in spite of a considerable deal of ridicule, in maintaining that the telephone was destined to connect cities and nations as well as individuals.

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She had long ousted London from her pride of place as the modern Babylon, she was the centre of the world's finance, the world's trade, and the world's pleasure; and men likened her to the apocalyptic cities of the ancient prophets.

There was at Washington a large relserve of naval guns, and these were distributed rapidly, conspicuously, and with much press attention, among the Eastern cities. They were mounted for the most part upon hills and prominent crests around the threatened centres of population.

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As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple.

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One immediately perceived three long parallel streets, unbroken, undisturbed, traversing, almost in a straight line, all three cities, from one end to the other; from North to South, perpendicularly, to the Seine, which bound them together, mingled them, infused them in each other, poured and transfused the people incessantly, from one to the other, and made one out of the three.

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We were twenty days upon the road, crossing two sea bottoms and passing through or around a number of ruined cities, mostly smaller than Korad.