ghetto
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɡɛ.təʊ/
ipa: /ˈɡɛ.toʊ/
ipa: [ˈɡɛɾoʊ̯]
rhymes: -ɛtəʊ
Forms: form: more ghetto
form: most ghetto
Etymology: Borrowed from the name of the Venetian Ghetto, whose etymology and original source language is uncertain. Compare Italian ghetto.
Senses: examples: text: Those residing in ghetto communities were particularly ill equipped to adapt to the seismic changes taking place in the U.S. economy; they were left isolated and jobless.
ref: 2012, Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, →ISBN, page 50:
glosses: Of or relating to a ghetto or to ghettos in general.
examples: text: My apartment's so ghetto, the rats and cockroaches filed a complaint with the city!
text: I like to drive ghetto cars; if they break down you can just abandon them and pick up a new one!
text: I had not used very many minutes on my phone. Here we pay for our minutes prior to using them, and it gets expensive. I did not want her using up all my minutes. That was very ghetto and disrespectful.
ref: 2005, Ramon Carrasco, Army Life: The First Four Months in My First Duty Station, page 15:
text: In some kind of warped hometown loyalty, sometime during the conversation folks would stake their claim to owning the bottom. Philly is more ghetto than D.C. Or is it that DC. is more ghetto than Philly? Or Dallas (LA) is more ghetto than LA.
ref: 2007, Cora Daniels, Ghettonation: A Journey Into the Land of Bling and Home of the Shameless, page 11:
text: One guest did not pay. One of my checks remained open. They bolted and hit the service door. A walkout. Very ghetto.
ref: 2010, Deborah J. Hultin, WaitStress, page 115:
text: It was like an awesome trip walking though the old house on Douglas, a lot had changed and my dad had it looking more ghetto than ever. He had a dog that he was watching while a buddy of his was in prison. It was a female Rottweiler
ref: 2011, Taylor Goetz, 169 Pages Of My Life, page 61:
glosses: Unseemly and indecorous or of low quality; cheap; shabby, crude.
examples: text: The music I liked was very ghetto and gritty. It was the stuff that didn't really cross over much, but spoke to a roots black experience. People don't understand this now, but the falsetto, crying singers were the most ghetto back then.
ref: 2002, Russell Simmons, Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money, + God, page 26:
text: You're the one that grew up in the suburbs and you act way more ghetto than I do.” “I am not ghetto.” Val said in an English accent and broke out laughing.
ref: 2007, S. L. Mitchell, Gypsy's Crossing:
text: I beat up my kid's principal. Can you get any more ghetto than that?
ref: 2005, Chester Kelly Robinson, The Strong Silent Type:
text: He wasn't lying because, truth be told, I looked a lot like Halle Berry, only I was much thicker in all the right places and I was way more ghetto than Halle. And I had the tattoos and the attitude to match.
ref: 2008, Mark Anthony, “So Seductive”, in Around the Way Girls 5, page 244:
text: Oh yeah, we played the whole thing, I mean we was acting more ghetto than what we was. We was talking slangs and giving dabs every time we said so
ref: 2010, Timothy Black, When a Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On and Off the Streets, page 93:
text: Kesha rang us up, and instructed another girl in the back to add extra food to the bag. "Your girl is kinda ghetto ain't she?" I asked when we left the store. "No more ghetto than anyone else around here" he replied,
ref: 2010, T. S. Weatherspoon, The Promise, page 20:
glosses: Characteristic of the style, speech, or behavior of residents of a predominantly black or other ghetto in the United States.
glosses: Having been raised in a ghetto in the United States.
Derived terms: boughetto
nonghetto