Etymologically
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suburb

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈsʌbɜːb/[1]
  • US: /ˈsʌbɝb/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman suburbe,[2][3][4][5] and also directly from Latin suburbium (“an outlying part of a city”),[2][6][7] from sub (“below, near”) and urbs (“city”).[4][8][9] In Anglo-Norman the word is recorded from the later 13th century, for a district outside a city wall.[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the plural, the area just outside the walls or boundaries of a town or city: c. 1350, in a Psalter.[2] Barnhart dates suburbe to before 1325, and Etymonline to the early 14th century.[5][4]

Semantic evolution

A single district outside a city, a suburb, is recorded from a1387, in Trevisa.[2] From c. 1384, in the Wycliffite Bible, the word was also used of the outlying parts or confines of anything, and later (1568) of the margins of something immaterial.[2] In 16th- and 17th-century London the suburbs outside the City were home to playhouses, brothels and smelly trades, so suburb and the later suburbian could mean loose or riotous;[10][6][11] Weekley notes that the disparaging sense of suburban, narrow and middle-class, goes back to Byron's Beppo and contrasts curiously with that older meaning.[11] Johnson (1755) defined the word as the buildings outside the walls of a city.[12] The suburbs that now lie within a city's boundaries and are mainly residential are a later development of the same sense.[2][7]

Timeline

  • before 1325 – suburbe, area outside a town.[5]
  • c. 1350 – suburbs, the area outside a town's walls.[2]
  • c. 1384 – the outlying parts of any place.[2]
  • a1387 – a single district outside a city.[2]
  • 1568 – the margins of something immaterial.[2]
  • 1813 – the area just outside a large building or estate.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A mainly residential district on the outskirts of a city or town: They moved to a quiet suburb north of the river.
  2. the suburbs: the residential areas around a city as a whole.
  3. (archaic) The outlying part of any place; its outskirts.

Word family

  • urban
  • urbane

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.