Metropolis, n.
Etymology: [L. metropolis, Gr. Mother, and Police.]
1. The mother city; the chief city of a kingdom, state, or country. [Edinburgh] gray metropolis of the North. Tennyson.
2. (Eccl.)
The seat, or see, of the metropolitan, or highest church dignitary. The great metropolis and see of Rome. Shak.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for metropolis; he lists it under capital.
Where he writes about it:
The metropolis is the chief city in the commercial, the capital in the political sense. — from capital
The capital of an American State is rarely its metropolis. — from capital
Antonyms
none given