Short informal word for suburbs—the residential areas outside a city center.
Informal abbreviation of 'suburbs' (from Latin 'sub-' meaning under/beyond and 'urbs' meaning city—literally 'beyond the city'). The shortened form became very common in 20th century American English.
The existence of 'burbs' shows how powerful informality can be—in just decades, a totally made-up abbreviation became so standard that people don't realize it's slang, proving that slang is how languages actually evolve.
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