Meaning & use
bedroom town
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountableBritish
a town where most people live and sleep but travel elsewhere to work
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a bedroom town' or 'bedroom towns'.
Patterns
- a bedroom town for a city
- live in a bedroom town
She grew up in a quiet bedroom town and took the train into the city every morning.
The new housing development has turned the village into a bedroom town for the nearby industrial city.
Many bedroom towns have few offices or factories of their own.
Word forms
| plural | bedroom towns |
|---|
Common combinations
- a dormitory town
- In British English, a dormitory town is another name for a bedroom town.
- a commuter town
- The commuter town is packed with people heading to the station at 7 a.m.
- a suburban bedroom town
- They moved to a suburban bedroom town to get more space.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dormitory town
- A close synonym in British English, but it sounds slightly more formal and is used less often in everyday speech.
- commuter town
- Focuses on the people who travel to work rather than on the town's function as a place to sleep; often used in British English.
- bedroom community
- The usual American English term for the same idea.
Commonly confused: bedroom town or bedroom community?
bedroom town vs bedroom community
This is the American English equivalent of 'bedroom town'; 'bedroom town' is more common in British English.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'bedroom town' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 2 is correct because a bedroom town is a place where people live and sleep but travel elsewhere to work. Option 0 is wrong because a bedroom town has few local jobs. Option 1 is wrong because 'bedroom town' is not a piece of furniture. Option 3 is wrong because it confuses the phrase with a product.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bedroom town”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.