(intransitive, informal) To become more like or more in the character of a city.
1946, Harper's Magazine, Volume 192,The metropolis grows like a tree in concentric circles, rim upon rim, the inner rings hardening or "citifying" and the outer bark expanding or "urbanizing."
1970, United States House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings, reports and prints of the House Committee on Appropriations,The United States of America is not yet a jungle of metropolitan areas, but we are citifying at a very rapid pace.
2010, Dr Dan Budenz, Analyzing Monsters - Family Cures: The Drew Peterson Saga, page 105,My wife and I happened to have fought with authorities to address the extremely dangerous roads throughout this citifying rural community.
(transitive, slang) To make more like or more in the character of a city.
1975, Robert Lipsyte, Sportsworld: an American Dreamland,Harness racing was being citified by crooked lawyers.
1989, David R. Kinsley, The Goddesses' Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West,In her role as a citifying presence, Athena often is associated with political structures, the administration of justice, and the arts of persuasion, such as rhetoric.
1995, National Geographic Society, '', Volume 187,"But these newcomers are citifying the rural atmosphere." They're also citifying prices.
(transitive, informal) To make more like a city person.
2005, John Michael Archer, Citizen Shakespeare: freemen and aliens in the language of the plays, page 97:In taking his gage from a prostitute in the London stews, he appropriates in a burlesque mode the faltering aristocratic rituals that Richard and his father try to manage. He citifies them, or reveals how they have already been invaded by city modes of violence and desire in the history world.
2007, Matthew Desmond, On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters,I reacted to my well-to-do peers, with the help of my roommate and best friend John, by sissifying and citifying them.
