polycentric.

Having several centers of activity, authority, or organization rather than a single dominant center.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• polycentric governance
• polycentric development
• polycentric city

On the page

The study describes a polycentric city linked by several smaller business districts.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal / analytical. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Commonness: moderately common (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Cambridge verifies more than one center with market decentralization example; useful geographic and organizational applications share this meaning. Writing functions: analysis, conceptual distinction.