Meanings
- UScolloquialNickname for Albuquerque: a city in New Mexico, United States.
The tale is pretty standard stuff—an ex-Golden Gloves champ’s search for his real father intertwined with a ruthless wanna-be Spanish blueblood attorney’s dreams of turning the Duke City’s downtown into a desert Venice by rechanneling the waters of the Rio Grande into canals.
1992 December 17, Julio Moran, “Book Review: Anaya’s Tale of ‘Alburquerque’: An Old Name, and Same Old Story […]”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Jul 20261 more example
Any conversation about travel to New Mexico seems to start with Santa Fe, the tourist-magnet about 60 miles up the road from Albuquerque, the state’s largest city. But Duke City (so called for its namesake, the Duke of Alburquerque, the early 18th-century Viceroy of New Spain) has been emerging from its neighbor’s shadow ever since the popular drama “Breaking Bad” began in 2008.
2019 September 19, Elaine Glusac, “36 Hours in Albuquerque”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2019
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Named after Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Duke City. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Duke%20City
“Duke City.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Duke%20City. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Duke City,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Duke%20City.
Source: Duke City on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.