Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CIT'Y, n. [Fr. cité; It. citta, cittade or cittate; Sp. ciudad; Port. cidade; from the Latin civitas.]

1. In a general sense, a large town; a large number of houses and inhabitants, established in one place.
2. In a more appropriate sense, a corporate town; a town or collective body of inhabitants, incorporated and governed by particular officers, as a mayor and aldermen. This is the sense of the word in the United States. In Great Britain, a city is said to be a town corporate that has a bishop and a cathedral church; but this is not always the fact.
3. The collective body of citizens, or the inhabitants of a city; as when we say, the city voted to establish a market, and the city repealed the vote.