gentrify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to alter (a deteriorated urban neighborhood) through the buying and renovation of houses and stores by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, raising property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.
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to conform to an upper- or middle-class lifestyle; make appealing to those with more affluent tastes.
Fish and chips have been gentrified.
verb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gentrifysimple
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gentrifiessimple
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have gentrifiedperfect
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has gentrifiedperfect
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am gentrifyingprogressive
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are gentrifyingprogressive
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is gentrifyingprogressive
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have been gentrifyingperfect progressive
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has been gentrifyingperfect progressive
Past
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gentrifiedsimple
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had gentrifiedperfect
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was gentrifyingprogressive
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were gentrifyingprogressive
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had been gentrifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gentrify
Explanation
To gentrify is to fix up a neighborhood so that wealthier people want to move there, with the unfortunate result that poor residents can't afford to live there anymore. This process often begins when middle-class people start buying and sprucing up homes in a poor neighborhood. Over time, more well-off people move in, along with hip coffee shops and fancy restaurants and shops — and house prices and rents go way up. It takes a while to gentrify a whole neighborhood, but eventually it becomes nearly impossible for lower-income people to stay. Gentrify is from gentry, or "nobility," and its root, which means "high-born."
Vocabulary lists containing gentrify
There Goes the Neighborhood
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Nigeria Jones
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Invisible Son
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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.
Around that same time, Port Morris, especially the blocks near the building, started to gentrify.
From New York Times • Feb. 15, 2023
“I would just hope that people that move here, that kind of gentrify unconsciously, would respect where they’re moving to and think about what they’re doing,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 23, 2022
For the past several years, Lincoln Heights residents have opposed the project, for fear it would gentrify their mostly Latino and Asian working class neighborhood, and risk community exposure to contaminated soil.
From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2022
He has watched other parts of metropolitan Cincinnati, including the West End and Over-the-Rhine, gentrify in ways that displaced longtime Black residents.
From Slate • Sep. 26, 2021
He said the effort was a misguided attempt to gentrify blighted neighborhoods under the guise of fighting crime — a claim disputed by city leaders.
From Washington Post
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.
