Why this word is great
SYNOECISM — [Noun] The foundational political unification of separate towns or communities into a single, sovereign city-state or polis. From Ancient Greek συνοικισμός (sunoikismós), from συνοικίζειν (sunoikízein, "to unite under one city"), from σύν (sún, "together") + οἰκίζειν (oikízein, "to settle, to colonise"). Unlike synoikia, which denotes the resultant state of cohabitation, or sympoliteia, which suggests a formal treaty between distinct cities, synoecism is the definitive, often violent, act of forging a sovereign whole. It is the surveyor’s line drawn through ancestral groves to mark a common wall, the ceremonial merging of scattered hearth-fires into a single public flame, and the redirection of parochial cults to a central agora—the moment a collection of homes consents to become a city, and thus invents its own demise.