shantytown
Americannoun
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a section, as of a city or town characterized by shanties and crudely built houses.
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a whole town or city that is chiefly made up of shantylike houses.
noun
Etymology
Origin of shantytown
Explanation
A shantytown is a makeshift settlement established by impoverished people. India, Pakistan, and Mexico all currently have fairly large shantytowns. A shanty is a rough dwelling, a word that derives from Scottish Gaelic roots meaning "old" and "house." A community made up of shanties, built from foraged materials like wood, metal, and cardboard, and inhabited by people experiencing homelessness and poverty, is a shantytown. Most of them are found in developing countries, but thousands of Americans lived in shantytowns during the Great Depression, and wealthy cities including Madrid and Los Angeles are home to shantytowns today.
Vocabulary lists containing shantytown
South America - Middle School
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The Great Depression and The New Deal
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South America - High School
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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.
In 1953, a fire destroyed a shantytown called Shek Kip Mei, leaving more than 53,000 people homeless.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 27, 2025
Their shantytown, nestled in the middle-class neighbourhood of Jodhpur Park, thrummed with life.
From BBC • Dec. 16, 2024
But as the Kurdish refugee from Iran quickly realized, dreams and despair were intertwined in the shantytown known as the Jungle.
From Washington Post • Mar. 29, 2023
At the Pyramid Hotel, an 11th-floor restaurant offers panoramic views of the Nile and an adjoining shantytown.
From New York Times • Feb. 3, 2023
MDR had claimed the life of a close friend, a priest named Jack Roussin, who had been living and working in a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima, the capital of Peru.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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.
