Dictionary

metropole en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈmɛtɹəpəʊl/ (UK)
• /ˈmɛtɹəpoʊl/ (US)

Etymology

From Middle English metropol, from Middle French metropole (“town with bishop's seat”), from Latin mētropolis. Doublet of metropolis.

Meanings

1. A metropolis; the main city of a country or area.
   • The first Antifas functioned as platforms to organize against far-right groups like the National Democratic Party (NPD) in an autonomist movement still numbering in the tens of thousands of active members and capable of occupying entire city blocks in some West German metropoles. 2017 May 14, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine:
2. The parent-state of a colony.
   • Though the metropole remained confident in its Westminster ways, its newly independent colonies imposed constitutional constraints on the powers of parliament. 2007, Bruce Ackerman, “Meritocracy v. Democracy”, in London Review of Books, 29:5, p. 9:
   • As Europe's population growth and commercial activity slowed down after 1620, its thirst for Spanish-American silver slackened: metropole and colony were drifting apart. 2007, John Darwin, After Tamerlane, Penguin, published 2008, page 63:
3. (archaic) A bishop's see.

Forms

Relateds

metropolis

Translations (3)

fi emämaa (parent state) · hu anyaország (parent state) · fr métropole (parent state)