suburbium

Forms

suburbium n (genitive suburbiī or suburbī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin sub- (“under, near”) + urbs (“city”) + -ium.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it in the Philippics (in suburbium ire, “to go into the suburb”),^[4][5] for the country close to the city, in his case Rome.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Later writers such as Cassian keep the sense of a suburb.^[5] In Medieval Latin it also named the territory of which a city was the centre, a pagus or a diocese, and a subdivision of a pagus;^[6] in British sources it is a settlement, small borough or stretch of countryside close to a town.^[7] Old High German glossed it as foraburgi.^[8] It lives on in Italian and Spanish suburbio and Portuguese subúrbio,^[1] and English took suburb from it through Old French.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the land close to Rome.^[2][8]
• 632 – The earliest medieval record Köbler gives, from Niermeyer.^[8]
• 675 – A charter (in a 15th-century copy) places a monastery in suburbio of the city of Dorovernis.^[7]
• early 14th century – English borrows suburb from Old French suburbe.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The area just outside a city, a suburb.^[2][4][5]
2. (Medieval Latin) The territory with a city at its centre, a pagus or diocese.^[6][8]
3. (Medieval Latin) A subdivision of a pagus.^[6]
4. (Medieval Latin) A settlement or small borough near a town.^[7]

Related words

• urbs
• English suburb

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com