slum
Americannoun
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slums
plural
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Often slums. a thickly populated, run-down, squalid part of a city, inhabited by poor people.
-
any squalid, run-down place to live.
verb (used without object)
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slums,
present (3rd person singular)
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slummed,
past participle, past
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slumming
present participle
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to visit slums, especially from curiosity.
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to visit or frequent a place, group, or amusement spot considered to be low in social status.
noun
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a squalid overcrowded house, etc
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(often plural) a squalid section of a city, characterized by inferior living conditions and usually by overcrowding
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(modifier) of, relating to, or characteristic of slums
slum conditions
verb
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to visit slums, esp for curiosity
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Also: slum it. to suffer conditions below those to which one is accustomed
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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slumsimple
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slumssimple
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have slummedperfect
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has slummedperfect
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am slummingprogressive
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are slummingprogressive
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is slummingprogressive
-
have been slummingperfect progressive
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has been slummingperfect progressive
Past
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slummedsimple
-
had slummedperfect
-
was slummingprogressive
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were slummingprogressive
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had been slummingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of slum
1805–15; compare earlier argot slum room; origin obscure
Explanation
A slum is a poor area of a big city. A slum is usually overcrowded and dirty, a discouraging place to live. Some of a city's neighborhoods are fancy and full of wealthy people, while others are slums (and most are somewhere in between). In a slum, most people are poor. The living conditions are inferior in a slum, which may not have the stores, restaurants, and health services its residents want or need. In the early 1800's, the term was back slum, which meant "back alley" or "street of poor people," and was eventually shortened to simply slum.
Vocabulary lists containing slum
Chapter 21: An Urban Society
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Thirst
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Or that the public housing she championed would itself deteriorate so badly that, by 1990, the federal government would label much of it as “severely distressed”—and demolish it for having become a latter-day slum.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026
He has faced a concerted challenge from singer-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 43, who styles himself the "ghetto president", after his stronghold in a slum where he grew up in the capital, Kampala.
From Barron's ● Jan. 15, 2026
Despite his mounting fame, Bobi Wine chose to continue recording in a music studio he had built in the Kamwokya slum.
From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2026
For them, elements of Jenrick's slum comments ring true.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2025
Nothing familiar, not a traffic clog of yellow rusted buses or a water-logged slum of zinc shacks.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Residents are running guided tours through slums once controlled by gang leaders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
Nubi proposes "gentrification" that upgrades slums like Makoko without displacing residents.
From Barron's ● Jan. 16, 2026
He has also appeared at demonstrations, and spent Christmas Day visiting some slums and dancing with people in the streets.
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2026
Relating his journey to becoming a visual storyteller, Thomas recalled growing up in “one of the worst slums of Philadelphia,” sitting on his front stoop reading Shakespeare, James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams, immersed and transported.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2025
It was a long, mostly grim trip past ugly suburbs, decaying industrial plants, slums, and vast rail and truckyards.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Brooke Henderson, 17, slummed it on the Symetra Tour this week and won.
From Golf Digest ● Oct. 16, 2013
But I never slummed my pen, my lads, whate’er it might contain, While shearin’ for old Tom Patterson, on the One Tree Plain.
From The Old Bush Songs by A. B. (Andrew Barton) Paterson
She prefers slumming it at extraterrestrial honky-tonks with suitors who look like armadillo-plated slugs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
They seemed certain to spend their New Year’s slumming it in an undercard bowl and watching their players jump into the transfer portal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
The formidable actress is slumming here, unable to connect with the thin character or material.
From Salon ● Dec. 13, 2024
She’s not mailing it in, but she is for sure slumming.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2023
To Bull, it was as if Varney were an exiled prince slumming it among the foot soldiers of the world.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
