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
Her application listed her name, Oleksandra Wojcik, her age, nineteen, her address in a working-class suburb.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
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
It just seeped into me: a lady willing to take her three boys down to demonstrate, fight in the suburbs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
The truth is closer to home: The everywhere millionaires we describe are in metros, suburbs and rural areas across the country, building extraordinary fortunes in ordinary businesses.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 21, 2026
Hines, who has a background as a sex crimes prosecutor, is running against Mike Bouchard Jr. for an open seat in Michigan’s 10th District in the Detroit suburbs.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2026
Once the apotheosis of suburban constancy, Levittown is now an example of those same suburbs coming apart at the seams.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
