What did "city" mean?
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“
City.
Formerly meant properly a village.
VilleJuive, ville-neuve St George, ville-pinte ”, Furetière notes confidently in 1690. However, usage has already, in its time, got the better of this definition.
It is said, he specifies when giving all kinds of locutions, that "the suburbs are bigger than the city" for "all the things whose accessory is greater than the principal".
Enough to make Villefranche-sur-Saône a megalopolis facing Lyon!
Read also Where do the names of French cities come from?
From the end of the 14th century, the city surpassed, in reality, its etymology.
From the Latin villa (country house, rural property), the city is assimilated, in the 5th and 6th centuries, to a set of houses attached to the villa, thus the village was born.
In the 10th century, we went from the model of the ancient city to the medieval city.
Subsequently, the city is defined as a "meeting of inhabited houses", already arranged by streets.
Two centuries later, it will designate an important agglomeration,
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