a sovereign state consisting of an autonomous city with its dependencies.
Origin of city-state
First recorded in 1890–95
Words nearby city-state
city plan, city planning, city room, cityscape, city slicker, city-state, city technology college, cityward, citywide, Ciudad Bolívar, Ciudad del Carmen
Among the Yoruba, for instance, Frobenius shows that religion and city-state go hand in hand.
The Negro|W.E.B. Du Bois
Plato's thought was centered on the educational and moral needs of the city-state of Athens.
An Introduction to the History of Science|Walter Libby
For we now have to leave the religion of the household, and to study that of the earliest form of the City-state.
The Religious Experience of the Roman People|W. Warde Fowler
British Dictionary definitions for city-state
city-state
noun
a state consisting of a sovereign city and its dependencies. Among the most famous are the great independent cities of the ancient world, such as Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Thebes, Corinth, and Rome