metropolitanism

plural metropolitanisms

1. uncountableusuallyThe quality or state of being metropolitan.

   Bennietod was Bowery-born and office-bred, and this sad metropolitanism almost made of him a good philosopher.

   1906, Zona Gale, Romance Island

   3 more examples

   She stayed at two or three places a day for at least one meal--hotels in tiny towns she had never heard of, and in larger towns that were fumbling for metropolitanism.

   1917, Sinclair Lewis, The Job

   But in the form of its expression it exemplified that illusion of metropolitanism which is to my mind the veriest cockneyism in disguise, and which cannot but strike Americans as either ridiculous or offensive.

   1899, William Archer, America To-day, Observations and Reflections

   NOTE.—The Bytown mentioned in the foregoing chapter is now called Ottawa, and is a candidate, in conjunction with Montreal and Toronto, for the honour of permanent metropolitanism.

   1857, Henry A. Murray, Lands of the Slave and the Free

   Synonyms: metropolitanness