banlieue

Etymology

Borrowed from French banlieue.

Noun

banlieue (plural banlieues)

1. The outskirts of a city, especially in France, inhabited chiefly by poor people living in tenement-style housing
   • 2007, February 11, “Uzodinma Iweala”, in Colonial Castoff‎:

     […] her novel illuminates the general situation facing all children of postcolonial immigrants across the West, from the banlieue of France to the Islamic neighborhoods of New York to the Hispanic ghettos of Los Angeles.

   • 2007 November 4, Elisabeth Vincentelli, “You Are What Your Name Says You Are”, in New York Times‎:

     But Guy Desplanques, a demographer, pointed out in 2002 that names like Ahmed and Jamila actually were on the wane, and that second-generation French men and women work toward integration by coming up with variations like Yanis or Rayan; the latter has become popular in some banlieues, evoking both the Maghreb and the relatively widespread Ryan.

Etymology

From Old French banlieue, from Medieval Latin banleuca, bannileuga, from ban +‎ lieue (“league, mile”). Compare Middle High German banmile, modern German Bannmeile.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɑ̃.ljø/

Noun

banlieue f (plural banlieues)

1. suburb

Further reading

• banlieue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “banlieue” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).