μητρόπολις

Ancient Greek

From μήτηρ (mḗtēr, “mother”) +‎ πόλῐς (pólĭs, “city state, city”).

μητρόπολῐς • (mētrópolĭs) f (genitive μητροπόλεως); third declension

mother-state (in relation to her colonies)
- 431 BCE – 404 BCE, Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 6.82.4:
  ἦλθον γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν μητρόπολιν ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς μετὰ τοῦ Μήδου
  êlthon gàr epì tḕn mētrópolin eph’ hēmâs metà toû Mḗdou
  they came with the Medes against ours, their mother city
one's mother-city, mother country, home
capital city, or the largest city in a country
- 64 BCE – 24 CE, Strabo, Geography 11.13.1:
  ἡ δὲ Μηδία δίχα διῄρηται: καλοῦσι δὲ τὴν μὲν μεγάλην, ἧς μητρόπολις τὰ Ἐκβάτανα
  hē dè Mēdía díkha diēírētai: kaloûsi dè tḕn mèn megálēn, hês mētrópolis tà Ekbátana
  Media is divided into two parts; they call the one great, whose metropolis is Ecbatana
1. (in Egypt) chief town of a district or νομός (nomós)

Third declension of ἡ μητρόπολῐς; τῆς μητροπόλεως (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ἡ μητρόπολῐς hē mētrópolĭs	τὼ μητροπόλει tṑ mētropólei	αἱ μητροπόλεις hai mētropóleis
Genitive	τῆς μητροπόλεως tês mētropóleōs	τοῖν μητροπολέοιν toîn mētropoléoin	τῶν μητροπόλεων tôn mētropóleōn
Dative	τῇ μητροπόλει tēî mētropólei	τοῖν μητροπολέοιν toîn mētropoléoin	ταῖς μητροπόλεσῐ / μητροπόλεσῐν taîs mētropólesĭ(n)
Accusative	τὴν μητρόπολῐν tḕn mētrópolĭn	τὼ μητροπόλει tṑ mētropólei	τᾱ̀ς μητροπόλεις tā̀s mētropóleis
Vocative	μητρόπολῐ mētrópolĭ	μητροπόλει mētropólei	μητροπόλεις mētropóleis
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

“μητρόπολις”, in Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“μητρόπολις”, in Liddell & Scott (1889), An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
μητρόπολις in Bailly, Anatole (1935), Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
G3390 in Strong, James (1979), Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
μητρόπολις in Trapp, Erich, et al. (1994–2007), Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität besonders des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts [the Lexicon of Byzantine Hellenism, Particularly the 9th–12th Centuries], Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Woodhouse, S. C. (1910), English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎^[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
- capital idem, page 111.
- metropolis idem, page 527.
- mother idem, page 542.