Metrolink

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A commuter or light rail network that runs trains or trams linking a city with its surrounding suburbs and towns
2. A rail transit system serving a metropolitan region, such as the commuter services connecting Los Angeles or Manchester to outlying areas
3. Passenger rail service operating across a large urban area to carry commuters between city centres and nearby communities

Etymology: Metrolink is a compound of "metro" and "link", and its history is more recent than the older words it draws on. "Metro" comes from the French "métropolitain", a term that gave its name to the Paris underground railway, which opened in 1900 and is the source of the English use of "metro" for an urban rail system. The word itself ultimately traces to Greek "mētropolis", literally "mother city", from "mētēr" (mother) and "polis" (city), and the English "metropolis" came from it centuries earlier. "Link" is an older English word, going back to Middle English, meaning a ring or connecting element in a chain. Its transfer to the sense of a connection between places is a much later extension. "Metrolink" as a name for a city rail network is a modern coinage, formed by combining these two elements. It has been used for several systems in different countries, most notably the Southern California commuter rail network, so its meaning is largely a matter of the transport authorities that adopted it rather than of any single early attestation. The exact date of its first use as a name is uncertain.