metropole

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

• (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.]
2. 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.

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

• metropolis

mētropole

1. ablative singular of mētropolis