Word of the Day
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
cosmopolite
\koz-MOP-uh-lyt\ , noun;
1.
One who is at home in every place; a citizen of the world; a cosmopolitan person.
2.
(Ecology) An organism found in most parts of the world.
Quotes:
At first, Audubon made comparatively little impression in America, but he was an immediate success in Britain, where he presented himself alternately as a rustic backwoodsman and a sophisticated cosmopolite.
-- Alan Fern, "A Great Original's Great Originals", New York Times, December 12, 1993
He was a big-city sophisticate and moved easily in international film circles but, like his exact contemporary, the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (also a globetrotting cosmopolite), Pasolini rejected the glossy consumer culture that had made him famous in favor of the standards of an earlier, more rigid and more traditional society.
-- Edmund White, "Movies and Poems", New York Times, June 27, 1982
Behind the professional caution is a figure of storied warmth and charm, an American-educated cosmopolite as comfortable in the Midwest as in the Middle East.
-- Paula Span, "Man of Many Worlds", Washington Post, February 28, 1998
Origin:
Cosmopolite comes from Greek kosmopolites, from kosmos, "world" + polites, "citizen," from polis, "city."
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