Southborough

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town located in Worcester County in central Massachusetts, situated between Worcester and the Rhode Island border
2. A municipality in Massachusetts positioned in the south-central part of the state, known for its suburban character and proximity to Worcester
3. A town in central Massachusetts that forms part of the greater Worcester area in the southern portion of the state

Etymology: Southborough is a compound of "south" and "-borough", so its meaning is transparent: a settlement lying to the south of some other place. The "-borough" element is the Old English "burh", a fortified place or town, which later became the common English suffix for towns and villages. Names built this way are usually place names, so Southborough is most likely a town name rather than a word with a broader sense. The more revealing part is what this name shares with other English place names. Southbury, Sudborough and Sudbury are doublets of it: they come from the same underlying elements, but the forms have diverged over the centuries, with "south" sometimes reduced to "sud" in pronunciation and spelling. Southborough is simply the form that kept the fuller "south" while the others shortened it.