metropolitan area

noun

"metropolitan-area" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“metropolitan area” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
17
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An area of population usually with a central or core city and surrounding towns or suburbs.

Key facts for metropolitan area
PropertyValue
Headwordmetropolitan area
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters17
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “metropolitan area” sits in English frequency

metropolitan area falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

metropolitan area is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An area of population usually with a central or core city and surrounding towns or suburbs.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for metropolitan area in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is metropolitan area, spelled M-E-T-R-O-P-O-L-I-T-A-N- -A-R-E-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    An area of population usually with a central or core city and surrounding towns or suburbs.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "metropolitan area"?
"metropolitan area" is spelled M-E-T-R-O-P-O-L-I-T-A-N- -A-R-E-A.
What does "metropolitan area" mean?
As a noun, "metropolitan area" means: An area of population usually with a central or core city and surrounding towns or suburbs.
What language does "metropolitan area" come from?
"metropolitan area" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “metropolitan area”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is M-E-T-R-O-P-O-L-I-T-A-N- -A-R-E-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list