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

See Examples For:

ghetto ghettoes ghettos

Kavuma's philosophy is that there is so much talent in the ghetto, you just have to polish it.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Dzigan and Schumacher—who for most of the war were imprisoned by the Soviets—play versions of themselves in postwar Poland, performing a routine about life in the ghetto.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026

He studied music and drama at university and now lives in a wealthier neighbourhood, but still portrays himself as the "ghetto president", a nickname he earned through his songs denouncing social and economic injustice.

From Barron's ● Jan. 12, 2026

Starvation in Gaza today summons up my grandmother’s stories of how her family starved to death in the Warsaw ghetto.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2025

As if we could forget we live in the beating heart of the ghetto.

From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon

“Writing a lullaby helped to preserve the maternal aura that had to be maintained in ghettoes and camps with large populations of women and children.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026

Malcolm was convinced that the establishment of the time might tolerate black leaders as long as they stayed in the ghettoes.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 19, 2019

Trick Baby,”, which centers on a biracial pimp whose light skin allows him to move through both black ghettoes and white high society, is an adroit exposé of race and class in America.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 19, 2015

Over the past decade, as gay people have become more accepted and gay ghettoes have begun to empty out, I’ve noticed that the extremely muscled gay aesthetic has begun to fade away, especially among twenty-somethings.

From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2012

I don’t know if you know it, but there’s a whole circuit of commercial gospel entertainers who have come out of these little churches in the city ghettoes or from down South.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey

Following World War I, fantastic “art” was largely identified with Surrealism, while popular fantasy was mostly quartered within the new mass-market ghettos of pulps, comics, film marketing and paperback books.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

It is not clear exactly how many Jews survived the death camps, the ghettos or somewhere in hiding across Nazi-occupied Europe, but their numbers were a far cry from the pre-war Jewish population in Europe.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 22, 2024

The Jewish physician survivors were able to tell the histories of Jewish medical resistance in the ghettos and camps.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 9, 2023

“There were no ghettos in ancient Rome,” says Elsa Laurenzi, a researcher in classical archaeology.

From New York Times ● May 1, 2023

Other Jews were relocated behind thick walls and barbed wire in overcrowded city ghettos, created in large cities such as Warsaw and Lodz.

From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti