Meaning & use
bedroom community
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A town or suburb where most residents live but travel to a nearby city for their jobs.
Grammar: Countable: a bedroom community, several bedroom communities.
Patterns
- a bedroom community of a city
- a bedroom community for commuters
Our town is a bedroom community of the capital, and half the street takes the 7:15 train.
The population of the bedroom community drops sharply during working hours.
Many families moved to the bedroom community because houses were cheaper there.
Word forms
| plural | bedroom communities |
|---|
Common combinations
- a quiet bedroom community
- They moved to a quiet bedroom community outside Toronto.
- commuter bedroom community
- The commuter bedroom community has little nightlife.
- grew into a bedroom community
- The village grew into a bedroom community in the 1990s.
- bedroom community of the city
- It is a bedroom community of the city and relies on the highway.
- affordable bedroom community
- They found an affordable bedroom community near the university.
Synonyms and how they differ
- commuter town
- Commuter town is the common British term and highlights the daily travel, while bedroom community stresses that people mainly sleep there.
- dormitory town
- Dormitory town is a slightly older British phrase with the same idea, but sounds more formal.
- suburb
- A suburb is any outlying area of a city, while a bedroom community may be a separate town with few jobs of its own.
- satellite town
- Satellite town focuses on being near a bigger city and may have its own industry.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: bedroom community or gated community?
bedroom community vs gated community
A gated community is a walled or fenced neighborhood with controlled entry; a bedroom community is a town defined by commuting.
Practice
Why do people call a town a 'bedroom community'?
Choose one answer.
The term describes a residential town whose workers commute out. The other options do not match this meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bedroom community”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.