Adjacent Words

Cities definitions

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Webster's 1913 Dictionary

City Cit"y, n.; pl. Cities. [OE. cite, F. cit?, fr. L. civitas citizenship, state, city, fr. civis citizen; akin to Goth. heiwa (in heiwafrauja man of the house), AS. ?, pl., members of a family, servants, ? family, G. heirath marriage, prop., providing a house, E. hind a peasant.] 1. A large town. 2. A corporate town; in the United States, a town or collective body of inhabitants, incorporated and governed by a mayor and aldermen or a city council consisting of a board of aldermen and a common council; in Great Britain, a town corporate, which is or has been the seat of a bishop, or the capital of his see. A city is a town incorporated; which is, or has been, the see of a bishop; and though the bishopric has been dissolved, as at Westminster, it yet remaineth a city. --Blackstone When Gorges constituted York a city, he of course meant it to be the seat of a bishop, for the word city has no other meaning in English law. --Palfrey 3. The collective body of citizens, or inhabitants of a city. ``What is the city but the people?'' --Shak. Syn: See Village.