Meaning & use
suburb
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Meaning
nouncountable
A residential area on the edge of a city or large town, often where people live and commute to work.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a suburb' or 'the suburbs' when referring to the area in general.
Patterns
- a suburb of [city]
- in the suburbs
- live in a suburb
They moved to a quiet suburb of Chicago.
Many families prefer to live in the suburbs for the larger houses and better schools.
The new shopping center is located in a suburb just outside the city.
Word forms
| plural | suburbs |
|---|
Common combinations
- a suburb of
- She grew up in a suburb of Boston.
- in the suburbs
- They bought a house in the suburbs.
- the outer suburbs
- The outer suburbs are less crowded than the city center.
- a leafy suburb
- He lives in a leafy suburb with tree-lined streets.
Synonyms and how they differ
- outskirts
- Refers to the outer parts of a town or city, often less residential and more general than 'suburb'.
- residential area
- A broader term for any area where people live, not necessarily on the edge of a city.
Opposites
Word family
- suburban adjective
- Relating to a suburb or the suburbs.
- suburbanite noun
- A person who lives in a suburb.
Commonly confused: suburb or urban?
suburb vs urban
Urban means relating to a city or town; suburban means relating to the outskirts. They are often contrasted.
Practice
After living downtown for years, they decided to move to a quiet ______ outside the city.
Choose one answer.
A suburb is a residential area on the edge of a city, which fits 'quiet' and 'outside the city'. Urban means relating to the city itself, downtown is the city center, and rural means the countryside, so none fit the idea of a residential area near a city.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “suburb”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.