metropole

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛtɹəpəʊl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛtɹəpoʊl/

metropole (plural metropoles)

1. A metropolis; the main city of a country or area. [from 15th c.]
   • 2017 May, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine‎^[1]:

     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.

2. The parent-state of a colony. [from 19th c.]
   • 2007, Bruce Ackerman, “Meritocracy v. Democracy”, in 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, published 2008, page 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.

3. (now rare) A bishop's see. [from 19th c.]

• metropolis

mētropole

1. ablative singular of mētropolis

From Ancient Greek μητρόπολις (mētrópolis, “mother city”), from μήτηρ (mḗtēr, “mother”) + πόλις (pólis, “city (state)”).

metropole f (5th declension)

1. (historical) metropolis (the mother city or country of a colony)
2. metropolis (major city)

   Synonym: lielpilsēta