outskirts
Britishplural noun
Explanation
Some people like to live downtown. Others prefer the open spaces of the suburbs. But if you live in between the two, you are in the outskirts, the place where the city ends and the suburbs begin. Outskirts describes the outer edge of a city or town, farthest from the center but still technically part of that place. If you had a city map, you could draw a line on all sides where crowded streets filled with apartment buildings and businesses begin to give way to single-family houses and country roads. You might not get a perfect circle but you will see that outskirts are those border places between the city and the little towns that surround it.
Vocabulary lists containing outskirts
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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.
In the western city of Rennes, around 20 people set up a barricade using trash bins and large pallets on the outskirts of a shopping mall.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
Yang, 91, lives on the outskirts of China's bustling capital Beijing.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
A fast-moving wildfire burning near homes in the outskirts of Santa Clarita prompted evacuation orders Sunday afternoon as both L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026
The court, housed in a shiny glass building on the outskirts of The Hague, employs around 900 staff from 100 nationalities.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
He drove fast and, on the outskirts of Umuahia, Olanna asked, “Did you do anything with Alice?”
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
