Meanings
plural banlieues
- The outskirts of a city, especially in France, inhabited chiefly by poor people living in tenement-style housing.
[…] 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 February 11, Uzodinma Iweala, “Colonial Castoff”, in New York Times1 more example
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.
2007 November 4, Elisabeth Vincentelli, “You Are What Your Name Says You Are”, in New York Times
Origin
- Frenchbanlieue
- Frenchbanlieue
- Englishbanlieue
Borrowed from French banlieue.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
banlieue. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/banlieue
“banlieue.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/banlieue. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “banlieue,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/banlieue.
Source: banlieue on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.