favela

[fuh-vel-uh; Portuguese fah-ve-lah]

See more synonyms for favela on Thesaurus.com

noun

a shantytown in or near a city, especially in Brazil; slum area.

Origin of favela

1945–50; < Brazilian Portuguese: alleged to be a name given to a hill in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, where such towns were built circa 1900; literally, a shrub of the family Euphorbiaceae, derivative of Portuguese fava bean < Latin faba

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for favela

ghetto, Bowery, favela, tenderloin

Examples from the Web for favela

Contemporary Examples of favela

I interviewed Lilian, a single mother living in a Rio de Janeiro favela.
What Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff Can Teach Hillary Clinton
Heather Arnet
October 29, 2014

Historical Examples of favela

The high school kids who broke it were Brazilian Linux hackers who lived in a favela -- a kind of squatter's slum.
Little Brother
Cory Doctorow

British Dictionary definitions for favela

favela

noun

(in Brazil) a shanty or shantytown

Word Origin for favela

C20: from Portuguese

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012