ghetto
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɡɛ.təʊ/
ipa: /ˈɡɛ.toʊ/
ipa: [ˈɡɛɾoʊ̯]
rhymes: -ɛtəʊ
Forms: form: ghettos
form: ghettoes
form: ghetti
Etymology: Borrowed from the name of the Venetian Ghetto, whose etymology and original source language is uncertain. Compare Italian ghetto.
Senses: examples: text: The Venetian ghetto, according to Sennett, was to provide protection from the unclean bodies of the Jews and their sullying touch. The Roman ghetto, on the other hand, was planned as an area for mission. It was supposed to collect the Jews in one place, so that it would be easier to convert them.
ref: 2009, Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city, →ISBN, page 25:
text: […] concentrating the Jewish community into ghettoes. The Germans not only started the ghettoes, but they had also opened a concentration camp […]
ref: 2010, Mike Lindner, Leaving Terror Behind: A Boy's Journey to Painting Over the Past, →ISBN, page 49:
text: Established by the Germans in October 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Europe.
ref: 2023 April 19, Lianne Kolirin, “One of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance tells of the bravery of those who dared to stand up against the Nazis”, in CNN:
glosses: An (often walled) area of a city in which Jews are concentrated by force and law. (Used particularly of areas in medieval Italy and in Nazi-controlled Europe.)
examples: text: Charlestown would also become one of Boston's three large Irish ghettoes.
ref: 1998, Steven J. L. Taylor, Desegregation in Boston and Buffalo: The Influence of Local Leaders, →ISBN, page 15:
text: By 1960 the growth and development of Chicago's black areas of residence confirmed the existence of the city's second ghetto.
ref: 1998, Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960, →ISBN, page 253:
synonyms: word: barrio
word: bad part of town
word: estate
word: favela
word: ghetto
word: Hell's Kitchen
word: jects
word: projects
word: scheme
word: shantytown
word: sink estate
word: slum
glosses: An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.
examples: text: Counterhegemonic spaces imagined as bounded territories ensure that heteronormativity is fixed beyond the borders of the gay ghetto. The rural and suburban lives of lesbian and gay people are made invisible and signified as inauthentic.
ref: 2006, Gay tourism: culture and context, Gordon Waitt, Kevin Markwell, →ISBN, page 201:
text: The student ghetto, southwest of the centre, is inside the triangle formed by [three streets] and is full of open-air bars, internet cafés, fast-food shops — and students.
ref: 2007, Romania & Moldova, Robert Reid, Leif Pettersen, →ISBN, page 190:
text: They're back in the student ghetto now, on oak-shaded streets lined with run-down houses filled with nonnuclear families of all varieties and kinds. Safe now from the tractor beams of the horrible good Christians, […]
ref: 2001, Justin Taylor, The Gospel of Anarchy: A Novel, →ISBN, page 64:
glosses: An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated.
examples: text: Abraham Merritt wrote for the pulps and never in his lifetime achieved critical success. Yet he had a devoted following in the science fiction ghetto who admired the clarity of his style and his power to evoke moods.
ref: 1983, Eric S. Rabkin, Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 249:
text: Invent is undoubtedly the wrong word, but the push from government was crucial in getting the Internet out of its academic ghetto.
ref: 2012, Andrew Blum, Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the Internet, →ISBN:
text: 2016 January 10, Quentin Tarantino, 73rd Golden Globe Awards
Ennio Morricone... is my favourite composer - and when I say favourite composer, I don't mean movie composer - that ghetto. I'm talking about Mozart, I'm talking about Beethoven, I'm talking about Schubert. That's who I'm talking about.
synonyms: ivory tower
glosses: An isolated, self-contained, segregated subsection, area or field of interest; often of minority or specialist interest.
Derived terms: antighetto
cyberghetto
gay ghetto
ghetto bird
ghetto blaster
ghettoblaster
ghetto booty
ghetto butt
ghetto fabulous
ghetto-fabulous
ghetto fence
ghetto house
ghettoisation
ghettoise
ghettoize
ghettoish
ghettoism
ghettology
ghetto lottery
ghetto palm
ghetto pass
ghettotech
hyperghetto
student ghetto