urban.
Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or happening or located in, a city or town; of, pertaining to, or characteristic of life in such a place, especially when contrasted with the countryside.
Meaning & usage
Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or happening or located in, a city or town; of, pertaining to, or characteristic of life in such a place, especially when contrasted with the countryside.
urban life
urban traffic
Living in a city or town.
Having authority or jurisdiction over a city or town.
Relating to contemporary African American culture, especially in music.
Of an inhabitant or resident: black; African-American.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *werbʰ-der. Proto-Italic *worβis? Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *gʰórdʰosder.? Latin urbs Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Italic *-nos Proto-Italic *-ānos Latin -ānus Latin urbānusder. Middle French urbainbor. ▲ Latin urbānus ▲ Latin -ānus Old French -ainder. Middle English -an English -an English urban Borrowed from Middle French urbain (“belonging to a city, urban; courteous, refined, urbane”) (modern French urbain), or from its etymon Latin urbānus (“of or belonging to a city, urban; of manners or style: like those of city dwellers: cultivated, polished, refined, sophisticated”) + English -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Urbānus is derived from urbs (“city; walled town; Rome”) (further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gʰerdʰ- (“to encircle, enclose; a belt; an enclosure, fence”) or *werbʰ- (“to enclose”)) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). For the euphemistic or proscribed term, it was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.