urbanity

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urbanity

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From Middle English urbanitie, from Middle French urbanité, from Latin urbānitās, from urbānus (“belonging to a city”), with a sense of "having the manners of townspeople" in Classical Latin, from urbs (“city”); equivalent to urbane +‎ -ity (sense 1) and urban +‎ -ity (sense 2).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əːˈbæn.ɪ.ti/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɝˈbæn.ə.ti/

urbanity (countable and uncountable, plural urbanities)

1. Behaviour that is polished, refined, courteous.

   Synonym: urbaneness

   • 1825, Washington Irving, “Paris at the Restoration”, in The Crayon Papers:

     The vaunted courtesy of the old school, the smooth urbanity that prevailed in former days [...]

   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume I, London: Henry Colburn, , published 1842, →OCLC, pages 261–262:

     He only stayed a few days in London, to take the oaths and his seat in the House of Lords, a ceremony that was to take place on the morrow, and he held himself much indebted to the circumstance of spending his first evening at Lady Anne's, because the marquis of Wentworthdale had, with the utmost urbanity, offered to accompany him on that somewhat trying occasion,and he felt the value of his kindness not less than the courtesy evinced by a man of his rank and importance in the court and the House of Lords.

   • 1864, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “A Threatening Notice”, in Wylder’s Hand. , New York, N.Y.: Carleton, , published 1865, →OCLC, page 276:

     Wealdon's two little visits explained perfectly the active urbanities of Captain Stanley Lake.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “The Stranger”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 115:

     Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.

2. Urbanness.

   Antonym: rurality

   • 1955, C.J. Lammers, Studies in Holland Flood Disaster 1953, volume 2, page 39:

     [...], the majority of cases will differ as to "urbanity", as most of the evacuees were rural.

   • 1956, Fred C. Iklé, Harry V. Kincaid, “Social Aspects of Wartime Evacuation of American Cities”, in Disaster Study, volume 4, page 44:

     Evacuees, the majority of whom were rural persons, reported more tensions as the urbanity of the reception community increased

   • 1995, Sam Bass Warner, The Urban Wilderness: A History of the American City, page 84:

     If the criterion of urbanity is the mixture of classes and ethic groups, in some cases including a mixture of blacks and whites, along with dens living and crowded streets and the omnipresence of all manner of business near the home in every quarter, then the cities of the United States in the years between 1820 and 1870 marked the zenith of our national urbanity.

• “urbanity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Tyburnia