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-ville

American  

  1. a combining form extracted from placenames ending in -ville, used in the coinage of informal nonce words, usually pejorative, that characterize a place, person, group, or situation (dullsville; disasterville; Mediaville ) or that name a condition (embarrassmentville; gloomsville ).

-ville British  

combining form

  1. slang (denoting) a place, condition, or quality with a character as specified

    dragsville

    squaresville
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of -ville

Ultimately from French ville “city”; bidonville

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The very common French suffix -ville is regularly confounded with our -field.

From The Romance of Names by Weekley, Ernest

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.