urbacity

U1R1B3A1C3I1T1Y4

noun

An extreme or exaggerated pride in one's city; an insular view of one's city.

Scrabble 15
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Meanings

nounurbacity (uncountable)
  1. rareuncountableAn extreme or exaggerated pride in one's city; an insular view of one's city.

    Urbacity is a disease that attacks dwellers in cities and causes them to imagine that the world is like New York or Kankakee or Gopher Prairie or wherever they happen to live.

    1922, Marketing/Communications, volume 118, page 139
    3 more examples

    The Englishman has quite justly been accused of insularity. That in itself is bad, but there is a compound insularity for which no word of English exists, because the state of mind is not realised. It is the citified insularity of London, London’s “urbacity.” I had to coin a word for it.

    1909, P.A. Vaile, “A new scheme for imperial scholarships”, in The Fortnightly Review, volume 92, page 724

    England has suffered cruelly because she would not think, because she was case-armoured in her insular conceit and the urbacity of her politicians. Insularity would be a term too complimentary and too all-embracing to use of them

    1918, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, volume 125, page 388

    It’s raining on Melbourne / on another design concept / made to reassure the citizens / of that city that god-given urbacity / will protect them forever / within a Florentine fantasy.

    2008, Stephen Oliver, “It’s Raining”, in Harmonic, page 64

Origin

Unknown, but claimed to be a coinage of Percy Adolphus Vaile in the early 20th century (see quote below). Compare urban, -ity, city. Not to be confused with urbanity.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

urbacity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbacity

MLA

“urbacity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbacity. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “urbacity,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbacity.

Source: urbacity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.