suburb
Americannoun
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suburbs
plural
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a district lying immediately outside a city or town, especially a smaller residential community.
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the suburbs, the area composed of such districts.
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an outlying part.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of suburb
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin suburbium, from sub- sub- + urb(s) “city” + -ium -ium
Explanation
A suburb is a residential district located on the outskirts of a city. If you live in the suburbs, you probably travel to the city for work. Suburb comes from Latin: sub means "below or near" and urbis means "city." You also will recognize this root in urban. Suburbs have more single-family homes than apartment buildings, and living there, you are more likely to have a yard with trees and grass. The downside is, if you work in the city, you might have a long commute that adds to the time you are away from your family.
Vocabulary lists containing suburb
Latin Root "sub" Words
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"The Civil Rights Movement"
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The United States
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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.
See Examples For:
Minimum lot sizes for new homes in an expensive Boston suburb like Bedford, Mass., range from 25,000 to 60,000 square feet.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
The park, in the Atlanta suburb of Austell, Ga., is “a significant part of our tourism landscape, drawing visitors from across our county, our state, and the Southeast,” Cupid wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
In Walton, a Liverpool suburb that ranks as one of Britain’s most deprived neighborhoods, around 1 in 2 households claim welfare, and 1 in 5 working-age residents claim PIP.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
Two of the masterpieces stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a suburb of Nice, have yet to be recovered.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
She eased out of bed, laced her shoes, and ran eight miles through the suburb, past pubs and butcher shops that were still shuttered in the early light.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
Many students protesting in recent weeks have spoken of inequalities in the education system, especially between Paris and its poorer working-class suburbs.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
After initially settling in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., her family moved to Minnesota as she entered high school.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
Construction is underway in a mixed-use area designed to boost tourism in Omaha’s southern suburbs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
Many of these schools are likely to be in high-immigration city suburbs, where the lack of teachers is most acute.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
“What do you bet all those cities on that list are suburbs of Chicago? I think I’ve heard of Evanston before. But...Buffalo Grove? Northbrook? Elmhurst? Wheaton?”
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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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.
