Forms: pl. 4–5 sub(b)arbes, -is, (-ys), -urbis, 5–7 suburbes, 6–7 subburbs, suberbs, (4 subaarbis, 5 -orbz, sowbarbys, subbardes, -ars, -ers, 6 -arbs, -ardes, subberbes, -is, -urbes, -ys, -orbes, sub-vrbs), 5– suburbs; also 5 sowthbarbys, -ez, 6 southebarbis (see SOUTH-2); sing. 4–7 suburbe, 5 sub(b)urbe, subbarde, 7– suburb. [a. OF. sub(b)urbe, pl. -es, ad. L. suburbium, pl. -ia (med.L. also suburbii). f. sub SUB- 11 + urbs city. Cf. Sp., Pg. suburbio.]
1. The country lying immediately outside a town or city; more particularly, those residential parts belonging to a town or city that lie immediately outside and adjacent to its walls or boundaries.
a. collect. pl.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 364. Þai hadden subarbis to fede þer þe beestis þat schuld be offred sacrifice to god in þe temple.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Can. Yeom. Prol., 104. In the suburbes of a toun … Lurkynge in hernes and in lanes blynde.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), IV. 211. An oxe spak to a plowȝ man in þe subarbes of Rome. Ibid. (1398), Barth. De P. R., XIV. xii. (Tollem. MS.). Sichem, þat was a cite of socoure with subbarbes [ed. 1535 subardes, 1582 suburbes] þerof in mounte Effraym.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 4. Florentynes, and Venycyens, And Esterlinges,… aftyr the maier riding, Passid the subbarbis to mete with the Kyng.
1439. Rolls of Parlt., V. 23/1. Fletestrete in the subbardes of London.
c. 1460. Oseney Reg., 6. Þe church of seynte marye Mawdeleyn the which is i-sett in the subbarbis of oxonforde.
1493. in Young, Ann. Barber-Surg. Lond. (1890), 67. Withyn this cyte or subbers of the same.
1523. Act 14 & 15 Hen. VIII., c. 3 § 5. Withyn either of the said Townes of Lyn and Great Yarmouth or Suburbes of the same.
1592. Greene, Vision, Wks. (Grosart), XII. 259. He trudgeth towards Antwerpe, where in the suberbes, hee heard of his wife.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., Wks. 1904, II. 148. London, what are thy Suburbes but licensed Stewes?
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., V. iv. 76. Theres a trim rabble let in: are all these Your faithfull friends o’ th’ Suburbs?
1665. Baker’s Chron., Contin. Chas. I., 501. That part of the Suburbs of London commonly called Covent Garden.
a. 1720. Sewel, Hist. Quakers (1795), II. VII. 2. At London, and in the suburbs.
1845. Sarah Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., III. 223. They … had resolved to burn the suburbs, in order to preserve the city within the walls.
1875. Helps, Soc. Press., iv. 59. How this ugly lot of suburbs would join with that ugly lot, and that there would soon be one continuous street.
† b. collect. sing.
1395. E. E. Wills (1882), 9. In the parosch of seynt sepulcre in the suburbe of london.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 482/1. Suburbe, of a cyte or wallyd towne (K. suburb or sowthbarbys of cyte), suburbium, suburbanum.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 9. He was sent to Gloucester College, in the Suburb of Oxon.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey).
[1853. J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk. (1873), I. I. ii. 70. Its cities … were surrounded beyond their fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens.]
2. Any of such residential parts, having a definite designation, boundary or organization.
a. sing. form.
1433. Lydg., St. Edmund, App. 395. Not ferre out of the toun In a subarbe callyd Rysbygate.
1665. Manley, Grotius’ Low C. Wars, 955. Suddenly a suburb beyond the River, that might have been defended, was quitted.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 15 Jan. 1645. I went to the Ghetto, where the Jewes dwell as in a suburbe by themselues.
1727. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit., III. II. 34. This Street is call’d the Cannon-Gate,… which Part, tho’ a Suburb, is a Kind of Corporation by itself, as Westminster to London.
1836. Macgillivray, Trav. Humboldt, v. 68. Crossing the Indian suburb, the streets of which were very neat.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1877), III. xii. 109. The monks of Saint Stephen already dwelt in their suburb beyond the walls of Caen.
1913. Standard, 20 June, 7/7. The people of Clapham, or Cricklewood, or Clapton, or any other suburb.
† b. pl. form with sing. concord.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 810. The suburbs of Gateshead, which is conioined to New-castle.
a. 1668. Lassels, Voy. Italy (1698), I. 58. A continual Suburbs of stately villas and villages.
1753. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit. (ed. 5), III. 214. The Market-place and St. Nicolas’s Church, from whence, for a good way, shoots out a Suburbs to the North-east,… and each Suburbs has its particular Church.
3. transf. and fig. (pl., rarely sing.) Outlying parts, outskirts, confines, purlieus.
a. of localities.
1382. Wyclif, Ezek. xlv. 2. On eche part it shal be halewid in fyue hundrid by fyue hundrid, four maner by cumpas, and in fifti cubitis in to the suburbis therof bi cumpas.
1601. Dent, Pathw. Heaven, 313. Ill company is the suburbs of Hell.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, III. iv. 128. They come to the Ilands of Guadelupe Dominique,… and the rest, which … be as it were, the suburbs of the Indies.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 91. Constantine raised these suburbes of Hell, and destroyed both the customes, statues, and temple it selfe.
1635. Quarles, Embl., V. vi. (1718), 270. To heav’n’s high city I direct my journey, Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., VI. § 2 II. 285. The Kitchin … with the Larder and Pantrey the necessary suburbs thereof.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 773. [Bees] Flie to and fro, or on the smoothed Plank, The suburb of thir Straw-built Citadel,… confer Thir State affairs.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On N. T., Luke xxiii. 42. Even then, when he is in the suburbs of hell, he will blaspheme.
b. of immaterial things.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, Wks. 1905, III. 174. The vaward or subburbes of my narration.
1643. D. Rogers, Naaman, 363. They would never come within the condition or suburbes of mercy.
1650. Taylor, Holy Living, ii. § 6. 142. When our fortunes are violently chang’d, our spirits are unchang’d, if they alwayes stood in the Suburbs and expectation of sorrowes.
1655. Fuller, Best Act Obliv., 2. Lent is a season for sorrow, this Week is the suburbs of Lent.
1822–56. De Quincey, Confess., Wks. 1890, III. 293. In summer, in the immediate suburbs of midsummer.
1848. Longf., Fireside, Resign., v. This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., xvii. 445. Silence is an embryo of a man,… a man dwelling in the suburbs of sense.
c. jocular.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Poems (1687), 326. The Suburbs of my Jacket are so gone, I have not left a Skirt to sit upon.
4. attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib. (rarely in pl. form) passing into adj. = Belonging to a suburb or the suburbs, SUBURBAN. Now rare.
1592. Nobody & Someb., I. Heares queanes maintaind in euery suburb streete.
1593. Marlowe, Lucan’s 1st Bk., 569. Those that inhabited the suburbe fieldes Fled.
1662. Gerbier, Brief Disc., 19. The Windows on the London and Suburbs Houses.
1680. Otway, Orphan, Prol. 20. The harmless Life Of Suburb Virgin or of City Wife.
a. 1721. Prior, Turtle & Sparrow, 424. Hear thy dirty Off-spring Squall From Bottles on a Suburb-Wall.
1811. Scott, Don Roderick, II. xxxix. The spark that, from a suburb-hovel’s hearth Ascending, wraps some capital in flame.
1820. Keats, Lamia, II. 26. From the slope side of a suburb bill.
1883. W. J. Stillman, in Century Mag., Oct., 821/1. You see the houses begin to lose their pagan aspect and grow up stories higher—villas—suburb houses, miles of suburbs with intervals yet to become city.
† b. Belonging to or characteristic of the suburbs (of London) as a place of inferior, debased, and esp. licentious habits of life (cf. quots. 1593, 1613, in sense 1). (freq. in 17th cent.) Obs.
Suburb sinner: a loose woman, prostitute.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., I. iii. if I can but hold him vp to his height,… it will do well for a suburbe-humor. Ibid. (1599), Cynthia’s Rev., II. iv. We cannot haue a new peculiar court-tire, but these retainers will haue it; these Suburbe-sunday-waiters.
1608. Dekker, Lanth. & Candle Lt., Wks. (Grosart), III. 266. Belzebub … knowes, that these Suburb sinners haue no landes to liue vpon but their legges.
1633. Marmion, Fine Companion, G 2. There’s a wench that has her Suburb trickes about her, I warrant.
1638. Nabbes, Bride, I. iv. You malkin of suburb authority set up only to fright crows.
1649. Milton, Eikon., Pref. Dissolute swordmen and Suburb roysters.
1664. Cotton, Scarron., IV. (1667), 136. Some durty Suburb drab.
a. 1668. Davenant, News fr. Plimouth, III. i. You look in this light habit Like one of the Suburb-Sinners.
c. = SUBURBICARIAN. rare.
1813. Examiner, 1 March, 131/2. The six suburb Bishopricks shall be re-established.
d. † suburb dross, bee-glue, PROFOLIS (see quot. and cf. quot. 1667 in sense 3 a).
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 158. Propolis is as much as suburbe dross, with which the Bees fasten the skirts of the Hive to the board.
