metropole

See also: métropole, metrópole, and Metropole

English

From Middle French metropole (“town with bishop's seat”), from Latin mētropolis.

metropole (plural metropoles)

A metropolis; the main city of a country or area. [from 15th c.]
The parent-state of a colony. [from 19th c.]
- 2007, Bruce Ackerman, ‘Meritocracy v. Democracy’, London Review of Books 29:5, p. 9:
  Though the metropole remained confident in its Westminster ways, its newly independent colonies imposed constitutional constraints on the powers of parliament.
- 2007, John Darwin, After Tamerlane, Penguin 2008, p. 63:
  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.
(now rare) A bishop's see. [from 19th c.]

city — see metropolis

parent state

mētropole