Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large city inhabited by people from many different countries.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A city composed of people gathered from all parts of the world.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An important city, such as a capital city, inhabited by people from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[cosmo– + Greek polis, city; see pelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From cosmo- + -polis.

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Examples

  • These employees (like "cosmopolis") --- who by just plain “bad luck of the draw” find themselves in this particular targeted civil service classifications --- have now been "politicized" by the Mayor in the campaign, and are now easily demonized in the public eye (as Chump Change comments would attest) as the Mayor and Council look to address very severe, real budget deficits over the next few years.

    City Light Employees Plan to Unionize « PubliCola 2010

  • But of course what counts is the idea of the city as a 'cosmopolis' first, rather than the mere capital of England: the British uniform matches the former much better than the latter.

    open Democracy News Analysis - Comments 2009

  • The Indian Ocean was a trading cosmopolis before the Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, an oceangoing marketplace where Indian, Chinese, Arab and Persian traders were brought close by the monsoon winds to create a grand network of communal ties.

    The Next Battleground Gurcharan Das 2010

  • However, as Councilmember Sally Clark has eloquently stated, budget shortfalls should be addressed by “… reviewing priorities and making decisions by programs and departments, rather than by targeting individuals or job titles … in a smart, systematic way that maintains basic services, matches our values as a community, and respects the good work of city employees.” cosmopolis

    City Light Employees Plan to Unionize « PubliCola 2010

  • "Baghdad was literally a cosmopolis," says Mr. Campion.

    Harvest Moons and the Seeds of Our Faith Zeeya Merali 2010

  • It was Dürer whose readiness to embrace the new technology of the printing press – his prints are as great as his paintings, or greater – set the modernising, forward-looking, and productive tone of German art right down to today, when new art flourishes in a Berlin that is the worthy heir to the cosmopolis portrayed in Kirchner's painting Potsdamer Platz.

    Auf wiedersehen Britart: Germany wins when it comes to art Jonathan Jones 2010

  • Even in a cosmopolis like this, it could not be every day that an outworlder went flying beneath your window, and Bowman assumed that he was the very first human being that anyone on this planet had ever seen.

    Tin 2010

  • Most of my central political concerns are connected with individual freedom and substantive justice, or with mutuality and solidarity, for me, and for the people that I love, and for my neighbors both in my physical neighborhood and in the cosmopolis.

    Announcing ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy 2009

  • There is also something importantly wrong here that goes to the heart of libertarianism- and Randianism- and America- and ‘Western civilisation’ which I wish to emphasise is not the same as ‘liberal civilisation’ or cosmopolis- too often an unknown ideal.

    Shameless Self-promotion Sunday #45 2009

  • Reborn, Journals & Notebooks 1947 – 1963, the first of three planned volumes, contains the earliest expository efforts yet published from the late essayist laureate of the American cosmopolis.

    Sontag on Sontag 2008

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