One of my graduate professors once mentioned that the term "suburb" came
into use during the Middle Ages, and that it is Latin - "urb" denoting
the towers or building structures in the early medieval towns. You might
try the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, which (although it
doesn't indicate when a term came into oral usage) does denote
when a term first began to appear in writing and how it has been
used throughout the centuries. I hope this helps!
Joyce Sampson
<jsampson@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
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