I. |me.trə|pälət ə n also -ətən or -əd.ən noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin metropolitanus, from metropolitanus, adjective
1. : the head of an ecclesiastical province:
a. : the head of an ecclesiastical province of the Eastern Orthodox Church who has his headquarters in a large city
b. : an archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church who presides over at least one suffragan see
c. : an archbishop of the Church of England
2. : one who lives in or has manners, customs, or ideas characteristic of a metropolis
modern apartment-dwelling metropolitan — R.M.Weaver
II. adjective
Etymology: Late Latin metropolitanus, from metropolita, metropolites metropolite + Latin -anus -an — more at metropolite
1. : of or befitting a metropolitan or his see : being an ecclesiastical metropolitan
metropolitan authority
metropolitan bishops
2. : of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city that is a metropolis
metropolitan markets
metropolitan newspapers
3. : evincing characteristics (as urbane manners or cosmopolitan ideas) regarded as typical of residents of a great city : not provincial
our instinctive desire to be metropolitan rather than parochial, to be “in the know” rather than to be ignorant of the very latest idiom — G.W.Sherburn
4. : of, relating to, or constituting a mother country
various metropolitan nations
metropolitan currency
metropolitan military forces
metropolitan France
there was upon the Witwatersrand very largely the same crowd of metropolitan miners — C.W.de Kiewiet
5. : of, relating to, or constituting a region including a city and the densely populated surrounding areas that are socially and economically integrated with it
metropolitan area
metropolitan district