suburban
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
About or characteristic of or situated on the outskirts of a city.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhburbuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
səˈbɝbən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Relating to or characteristic of or situated on the outskirts of a city; of or relating to suburbia or the suburbs.
noun
A person who lives in a suburb.
An automobile with a station wagon body on a truck chassis.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Relating to or characteristic of or situated on the outskirts of a city; of or relating to suburbia or the suburbs.
Used this way, suburban is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use suburban
- “Suburban population.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A residential district located on the outskirts of a city.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.