metropolitan

From Late Latin metropolitanus, from Ancient Greek μητροπολίτης (mētropolítēs).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mɛtɹəˈpɒlɪtən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /mɛtɹɵˈpɑlɨtən/

metropolitan (plural metropolitans)

1. (Christianity) A bishop empowered to oversee other bishops; an archbishop. [from 15th c.]
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 514:

     Yet from the late thirteenth century the metropolitan based himself either in Moscow or Vladimir-on-the-Kliazma, which was also in Muscovite territory, and it became the ambition of the Muscovites to make this arrangement permanent.

2. The inhabitant of a metropolis. [from 18th c.]

metropolitan (comparative more metropolitan, superlative most metropolitan)

1. (Christianity) Pertaining to the see or province of a metropolitan. [from 15th c.]
2. Of, or pertaining to, a metropolis or other large urban settlement. [from 16th c.]

• non-metropolitan

metropolitan m (feminine singular metropolitana, masculine plural metropolitans, feminine plural metropolitanes)

1. metropolitan