suburb
/ˈsʌbɝb/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.81 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A residential area located on the outskirts of a city or large town that usually includes businesses that cater to its residents; such as schools, grocery stores, shopping centers, restaurants, convenience stores, etc.
noun
The outer part; the environment.
noun
Any subdivision of a conurbation, not necessarily on the periphery.
Australian usage; New Zealand usage; British usage
Example Sentences
- "And the Lord spake vnto Moses in the plaines of Moab by Iordane, neere Iericho, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they giue vnto the Leuites of the inheritance of their possession, cities to dwell in: and yee shall giue also vnto the Leuites suburbs for the cities round about them."
- "These two circumstances, however, happening both unfortunately to intervene, our travellers deviated into a much less frequented track; and after riding full six miles, instead of arriving at the stately spires of Coventry, they found themselves still in a very dirty lane, where they saw no symptoms of approaching the suburbs of a large city."
- "[London] could hardly have contained less than thirty or forty thousand souls within its walls; and the suburbs were very populous."
- "Canton is by no means the only great city in the province. Fo-chan, a kind of suburb to it, about twelve miles distant, has been represented as almost as large."
- "At the mountain’s base is the leafy suburb of Kowloon Tong. It has never been a big tourist draw, but in the decade since territorial control returned to China, this quintessentially Hong Kong neighborhood has had many more visitors — and important changes."
- "I’m not surprised that Rudd seizes on my accent – his parents were British Jews from Edgware and Surbiton, and while Rudd was born in New Jersey in 1969 and raised in the US, he was often in Britain as a kid to visit relatives in London’s less glamorous suburbs and Basingstoke."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Old French
Word Breakdown
- Root: suburbe, suburbium
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsʌbɝb/
- British English: /ˈsʌbɜːb/
Usage
- Australian usage
- New Zealand usage
- British usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Places.