ghetto

American  

[get-oh] / ˈgɛt oʊ /

noun

ghettos, plural ghettoes plural

1. a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social pressures or economic hardships.

2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.

3. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment.

   job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly.

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adjective

1. pertaining to or characteristic of life in a ghetto or the people who live there.

   ghetto culture.

2. Slang: Often Disparaging and Offensive. noting something that is considered to be unrefined, low-class, cheap, or inferior.

ghetto British  

/ ˈɡɛtəʊ /

noun

1. sociol a densely populated slum area of a city inhabited by a socially and economically deprived minority

2. an area in a European city in which Jews were formerly required to live

3. a group or class of people that is segregated in some way

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ghettoes
  plural
• ghettos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of ghetto

First recorded in 1605–15; from Italian, originally the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century, from Venetian dialect: literally, “foundry for artillery” (giving the island its name); futher origin uncertain

Explanation

Ghetto means a crowded poor part of a city lived in by a specific ethnic group. The word is powerful, often associated with a rich cultural heritage or a sense of shame and a desire to escape. While most ghettos are formed through social forces (immigration, real estate values, public housing), in European cities during the time of the Nazi Holocaust (1939-1944), Jews were required by law to live in designated, often walled ghettos. Today, the word ghetto can also be used to describe non-geographic, but similarly cut off situations where one might feel stuck: "the academic ghetto."

Example Sentences

Michael Smuss, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland who resisted the Nazis, has died aged 99 in Israel.

From BBC • Oct. 24, 2025

Holocaust Memorial Museum had used the term in translating a text about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 17, 2025

In 1944, his parents and younger brother were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau – where Mr Turski, still a teenager, was to arrive two weeks later in one of the last transports from the Lodz Ghetto.

From BBC • Feb. 19, 2025

It’s instructive to remember that most of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, perhaps 300,000 , were taken to Treblinka where they were murdered alongside another 500,000 or so Jews.

From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2024

In December, my mother and I were transferred from Ghetto B, the section where we had been living, to Ghetto A, the area now designated for workers.

From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson