ghetto

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A part of a city where people of one ethnic or social group are forced or pushed to live, usually in poor conditions.

   Grammar: Often used with the name of a group or city: the Warsaw ghetto.

   Patterns

   • live in a ghetto
   • a ghetto for someone

   In the war, thousands were forced into the ghetto.

   Historians study how the city created a ghetto for its poorest residents.

   The museum explains life inside the old Jewish ghetto in Venice.

2. 2nouncountableoffensivedisapproving

   A neighborhood where poverty and lack of opportunity keep residents separate from the wider city.

   Grammar: Can be offensive when used casually about a poor area.

   Patterns

   • grow up in a ghetto

   Writers describe the lack of schools as a trap for those in the inner-city ghetto.

   Planners wanted to prevent a new ghetto from forming.

   Critics said the policy would turn the housing estate into a ghetto.

3. 3adjectivecomparableinformalslangoffensive

   Cheap, crude or poor in quality; this slang use can be considered insulting to people from poor areas.

   Grammar: Informal and potentially offensive, best avoided.

   Some people use ghetto to describe a cheap repair, but others find that hurtful.

   Style guides advise against calling something ghetto.

   The word ghetto in this sense can offend listeners.

Word forms

Common combinations

Jewish ghetto

The Jewish ghetto in Rome dates back centuries.

inner-city ghetto

The report described poverty in the inner-city ghetto.

ghetto walls

Guards stood at the ghetto walls.

escape the ghetto

Few families could escape the ghetto.

ghetto of poverty

The district was a ghetto of poverty and neglect.

Synonyms and how they differ

slum

Slum stresses poor housing conditions, while ghetto stresses that a group is confined or segregated.

enclave

Enclave is neutral and can describe a chosen community, which ghetto usually does not.

quarter

Quarter simply means a district of a city, as in the old Jewish quarter, and does not imply force or hardship.

Opposites

Word family

ghettoize verb

to confine a group to a poor or isolated area

ghettoization noun

the process of confining people to an area

ghettoized adjective

isolated and disadvantaged as a group

Commonly confused: ghetto or barrio?

Practice

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