cosmopolite n.

c. 1200, "the universe, the world" (but not popular until 1848, when it was taken as the English equivalent to Humboldt's Kosmos in translations from German), from Latinized form of Greek kosmos "order, good order, orderly arrangement," a word with several main senses rooted in those notions: The verb kosmein meant generally "to dispose, prepare," but especially "to order and arrange (troops for battle), to set (an army) in array;" also "to establish (a government or regime);" "to deck, adorn, equip, dress" (especially of women). Thus kosmos had an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration" (compare kosmokomes "dressing the hair," and cosmetic) as well as "the universe, the world."

Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but it later was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aiōn, literally "lifetime, age."

The word cosmos often suggested especially "the universe as an embodiment of order and harmony."

"ancient Greek city-state," 1894, from Greek polis, ptolis "citadel, fort, city, one's city; the state, community, citizens," from PIE *tpolh- "citadel; enclosed space, often on high ground; hilltop" (source also of Sanskrit pur, puram, genitive purah "city, citadel," Lithuanian pilis "fortress").

1815, "free from local, provincial, or national prejudices and attachments," from cosmopolite "citizen of the world" (q.v.) on model of metropolitan. From 1833 as "belonging to all parts of the world, limited to no place or society." Meaning "composed of people of all nations, multi-ethnic" is from 1840. The U.S. women's magazine of the same name was first published in 1886.

As a noun, "one who is at home all over the world, a cosmopolite," 1640s. As the name of a vodka-based cocktail popular in 1990s (due to "Sex and the City" TV program) from late 1980s (the drink itself seems to date to the 1970s).

Cosmopolitanism in reference to an ideology that considers all humans as a single community is recorded by 1828. It took on a negative tinge in mid-20c., suggesting an undermining of indigenous and national societies and often tied to the supposed influence of the Jews.