What does "city-state" mean?

Alternative spelling of city state.

What is a synonym for "city-state"?

Common synonyms include: ally, body politic, buffer state, chieftaincy, city state, colony.

City-state

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Alternative spelling of city state. alt-of, alternative
"For those of you looking to escape into international waters, there’s always seasteading to consider — modular, autonomous, voluntary city-states."
2
a state consisting of a sovereign city wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

ally body politic buffer state chieftaincy city state colony

Example

More examples

"The Vatican, which has already reported one coronavirus case, is hoping to keep crowd size down in the tiny city-state in its attempt to stop the virus."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.