cosmopolitan

cosmopolitan (ˌkɒzməˈpɒlɪt^ən)

—n
1.	a person who has lived and travelled in many countries, esp one who is free of national prejudices

—*adj*
2.	having interest in or familiar with many parts of the world
3.	sophisticated or urbane
4.	composed of people or elements from all parts of the world or from many different spheres
5.	(of plants or animals) widely distributed

[C17: from French, ultimately from Greek kosmopolitēs, from kosmo-cosmo- + politēs citizen]

cosmo'politanism

—n

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

cosmopolitan

1844, from cosmopolite "citizen of the world" (1614), from Gk. kosmopolites, from kosmos "world" (see cosmos) + polites "citizen," from polis "city" (see policy (1)). Cosmopolitanism first recorded 1828.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

cosmopolitan cos·mo·pol·i·tan (kŏz'mə-pŏl'ĭ-tn)
adj.
Growing or occurring in many parts of the world; widely distributed. n.
A cosmopolitan organism.

Example sentences

No dynasty had been so cosmopolitan and outward-looking.

She is an inventive, seemingly cosmopolitan composer.

Its capital is now a cosmopolitan city wrapped in a beautiful, ornate coat of

history.

It relied heavily on credit and foreign investment in its drive to turn itself

into a cosmopolitan center.

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Matching Quote

"If American has points of inferiority to English, they are merely matters of degree; if the Americans are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said in 1858, "the Romans of the modern world—the great assimilating people," the English are only to an exceedingly limited degree its Greeks. They are tarred too much with the same brush of pragmatism, democracy, industrialism, and materialism for deep cleavage. Even America is not wholly democratic culturally; there are remarkable enclaves of aristocratic culture in the cosmopolitan and tradition-bound society of the Eastern seaboard, whose members look east toward Europe far more than they look west towards the heartland of Americanism."

-Harry C. Allen