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Printable Version Pronunciation: kahn-êr-bay-shên Hear it!  Part
of Speech: Noun  Meaning: 1. An aggregation of urban areas, a
group of one or more cities that have expanded until they
overlap. 2. The process by which cities expand until they meet
to form a single large urban area.  Notes: Today's Good Word
first emerged in 1915 (see Word History), so it has just begun
to develop a family. The noun suffix -ion implies a noun from a
verb conurbate. Latinate words on -ate imply certain other forms
aside from conurbation: conurbative, conurbatively, even
conurbatable and conurbatability. Although these forms are just
emerging, they are perfectly legitimate, which is to say,
grammatical.  In Play: Today's is a more specific word to
replace such phrases as urban sprawl or metropolitan area: "The
District of Columbia was created to separate Washington from any
particular state, but today it is