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

Shipper survived two concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, a death march, and the Lodz ghetto - a Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis which was plagued by disease, starvation and forced labour.

From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2026

Afterward, a group of children come to the dressing room, with a criticism: “In the ghetto, that’s not how it was,” says one.

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

Hundreds of thousands of Jews were crammed into the ghetto, where they faced poverty, starvation, disease and cold.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2025

As we neared the Płaszów camp a short while later, I was still overjoyed I had succeeded in leaving the ghetto.

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

He defines “concentrationary” to include all circumstances in which there’s a punitive concentration of people, including in ghettoes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026

Almost every newspaper and TV station has an environment desk, but in most organisations they are neglected ghettoes outside the more prestigious political and economic teams.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 28, 2019

“Rather than looking at ghettoes with a white point of view, we give dignity back to the ghettoes,” he said.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 9, 2017

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

His vast archive contains music composed in the ghettos of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow and elsewhere.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026

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

The partisans entered ghettos under siege and brought Jews back to the Belarusian forest, where Mr. Bielski had built a community for them.

From New York Times ● Aug. 13, 2023

It was the largest of many ghettos across occupied Poland.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 2023

They were the same ghettos I had seen in Chicago all those years ago, the same ghettos where my mother was raised, where my father was raised.

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates