municipality

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French municipalité (Edmund Burke), from municipal + -ité, from Latin municipalis, from municipium (free city, township), from municeps (citizen of a free city or township), from mūnus (duty, service) + -ceps (taker, catcher). Equivalent to municipal +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /mjʊˌnɪsɪˈpælɪti/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Audio (Canada):(file)
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

municipality (plural municipalities)

  1. A district with a government that typically encloses no other governed districts; a borough, city, or incorporated town or village.
  2. The governing body of such a district.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.
  3. (politics) In the Philippines and in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, second-level administrative divisions that may house one or more cities or towns whose head of government may be called mayors or, in Mexico, municipal presidents.

Derived terms

Translations

Scots

Etymology

Borrowed from English municipality.

Noun

municipality (plural municipalities)

  1. municipality