Urbanity

//ɝˈbæn.ə.ti// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Behaviour that is polished, refined, courteous. countable, uncountable

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

  2. 2
    the quality or character of life in a city or town wordnet
  3. 3
    Urbanness. countable, uncountable

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

  4. 4
    polished courtesy; elegance of manner wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
amenityattentioncharmcivilitycompatibilitycongeniality

Example

More examples

"The French are known, among other things, for their chic urbanity."

Etymology

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).

More for "urbanity"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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