Dictionary

citify en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱey-der. Proto-Italic *keiwis Latin ceivis Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Latin -tās Latin ceivitās Late Latin cīvitātem (city) Old French citetbor. Middle English cite English city English -fy English citify From city + -fy.

Meanings

1. (informal, intransitive) To become more like or more in the character of a city.
   • My wife and I happened to have fought with authorities to address the extremely dangerous roads throughout this citifying rural community. 2010, Dr Dan Budenz, Analyzing Monsters - Family Cures: The Drew Peterson Saga, page 105:
   • The United States of America is not yet a jungle of metropolitan areas, but we are citifying at a very rapid pace. 1970, United States House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings, reports and prints of the House Committee on Appropriations:
   • The metropolis grows like a tree in concentric circles, rim upon rim, the inner rings hardening or "citifying" and the outer bark expanding or "urbanizing." 1946, Harper's Magazine, volume 192:
2. (slang, transitive) To make more like or more in the character of a city.
   • Harness racing was being citified by crooked lawyers. 1975, Robert Lipsyte, Sportsworld: an American Dreamland:
   • "But these newcomers are citifying the rural atmosphere." They're also citifying prices. 1995, National Geographic Society, National Geographic, volume 187:
   • In her role as a citifying presence, Athena often is associated with political structures, the administration of justice, and the arts of persuasion, such as rhetoric. 1989, David R. Kinsley, The Goddesses' Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West:
3. (informal, transitive) To make more like a city person.
   • I reacted to my well-to-do peers, with the help of my roommate and best friend John, by sissifying and citifying them. 2007, Matthew Desmond, On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters:
   • We may be clothed, citified, and civilized, but we carry deep within us the genetic patterns of behavior that served our ancestor, the "killer ape." 1992 July 17, Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 239:
   • In taking his gage from a prostitute in the London stews, he appropriates in a burlesque mode the faltering aristocratic rituals that Richard and his father try to manage. He citifies them, or reveals how they have already been invaded by city modes of violence and desire in the history world. 2005, John Michael Archer, Citizen Shakespeare: freemen and aliens in the language of the plays, page 97:

Forms

Antonyms

countrify

Synonyms

urbanize