bidonville
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bidonville
First recorded in 1950–55; from French, equivalent to bidon “metal drum, can (for oil, etc.)” (earlier, “five-pint wooden jug”; of uncertain origin) + -ville, combining form, in placenames, of ville “city,” from Latin vīlla villa; metal cans are often used as building materials in such towns
Example Sentences
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By Tim Padgett / Port-au-Prince Backhoes and other rubble-removal equipment can't climb the steep hills and narrow streets of the bidonville, or slum, known as Carrefour-Feuilles in Port-au-Prince.
From Time ● Mar. 1, 2010
The venture is an economic engine for the bidonville and a sustainable one as well, since it provides an alternative to the traditional charcoal fuel that has contributed to Haiti's vast deforestation.
From Time ● Mar. 1, 2010
A 1964 law had officially banned the bidonvilles, but their population was growing.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 29, 2018
But how many Americans think of the appalling squalor of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the bidonvilles of Algiers, the vecindades of Mexico City, or the nocturnal streets, littered with sleeping bodies, of Calcutta?
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
