1. A usually residential area or community outlying a city.
2. suburbs The usually residential region around a major city; the environs.

[Middle English suburbe, from Old French, from Latin suburbium : sub-, sub- + urbs, urb-, city.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.