How to Use big-city in a Sentence

big-city

adjective
  • Sports, let’s face it, are a big-city thing.
    — Will Leitch, Washington Post, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Many people thrive in the hustle and bustle of big-city life.
    — Claire Reid, Journal Sentinel, 6 Aug. 2024
  • Both were tucked away in the hills near major cities but the antithesis of big-city life.
    — Tim Chester, AFAR Media, 13 Dec. 2024
  • The task force should be led by the public sector, with the big-city mayors out in front.
    — Russell Hancock, Mercury News, 16 Aug. 2025
  • But this is a good second choice, as far as getting inside a big-city market.
    — Jeff Gluck, New York Times, 6 July 2025
  • The new normal for big-city transit agencies is the off-peak rider.
    — Curbed, 18 May 2023
  • Modern big-city bike-share schemes were born in Montreal.
    — Carlton Reid, Forbes.com, 7 Sep. 2025
  • Few big-city mayors make less of an impression than Karen Bass has.
    — Marc Novicoff, The Atlantic, 31 May 2026
  • The chapel is an excellent starting point to shake the clutter of big-city living from your mind.
    — John Metcalfe, The Mercury News, 3 Feb. 2025
  • Everyone knows that small-town life is different from big-city living.
    — Cory Smith, Baltimore Sun, 14 Nov. 2024
  • What really sets it apart, though, is its balance of small-town warmth and big-city energy.
    — Abby Price, Travel + Leisure, 19 Aug. 2025
  • That’s not to say that the big-city fires of the past were strictly natural phenomena.
    — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023
  • Abbott has butted heads with big-city mayors over the migrant crisis at the southern border.
    — Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Fox News, 28 Jan. 2024
  • There has been plenty of teeth gnashing and finger-pointing in those big-city baseball markets.
    — Patrick Saunders, Denver Post, 2 May 2026
  • That role at America's hottest big-city zoo has never been more critical.
    — Joan Meiners, USA TODAY, 11 Sep. 2024
  • No weekends of fancy meals, big-city hotel rooms and adoring fans everywhere.
    — Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times, 30 July 2023
  • The big-city rom-com, the natural habitat for the cheery sidekick, doesn’t get made as often anymore.
    — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 27 Aug. 2025
  • Yuri, by contrast, is a successful big-city architect.
    — Patrick Brzeski, HollywoodReporter, 12 May 2026
  • The outsider—most often a big-city visitor—always decides to stay.
    — Audra Heinrichs, Vogue, 6 Dec. 2023
  • Once one of dozens of big-city tabloids, the Post now stands alone as the last truly influential local tabloid.
    — Max Tani, semafor.com, 30 June 2025
  • What’s behind the rise in democratic socialists in big-city mayoral races?
    — David Hickey, NBC news, 18 June 2026
  • The race will also serve as another test for how crime is impacting big-city politics.
    — Ben Kamisar, NBC News, 16 May 2023
  • But a donation to an elite, big-city medical school is unlikely to be much help, experts told me.
    — Dylan Scott, Vox, 19 July 2024
  • All of that big-city razzle dazzle is drawing a different set of travelers.
    — Melinda Fulmer, Robb Report, 30 Nov. 2023
  • Of the 34 women big-city mayors, over 50% are women of color.
    — Kelly Dittmar, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
  • Courtyards stood empty, their gates locked by a generation that left to chase big-city dreams and bigger paychecks.
    — Chris Schalkx, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Feb. 2025
  • For a big-city civic museum, the Carnegie in Pittsburgh is an idiosyncratic place.
    — Brian T. Allen, National Review, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Part of the aim is connecting big-city poets on the coasts with small-town rural poets across the span of the US.
    — Nina MacLaughlin, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Sep. 2023
  • The big-city protagonist never reenters her apartment alone—and still a cynic—in the finale.
    — Audra Heinrichs, Vogue, 6 Dec. 2023
  • Wash it down with a frozen cocktail made with Murrell’s Row Spirits that would rival any big-city bar.
    — Colleen McNally Arnett, Southern Living, 11 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'big-city.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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