different between ghetto vs slum

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian ghetto, either from Venetian ghèto (“foundry”), or alternatively an apheresis of the Italian borghetto, diminutive of borgo (“village”). Initially used of the areas Jews were concentrated, later extended to concentrations of other ethnicities and then non-ethnic groups. The adjective and verb derive from the noun.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???t??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /???to?/, [????o??]
• Rhymes: -?t??

Noun

ghetto (plural ghettos or ghettoes or ghetti)

1. An (often walled) area of a city in which Jews are concentrated by force and law. (Used particularly of areas in medieval Italy and in Nazi-controlled Europe.)
   • 2009, Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city ?ISBN, page 25:

     The Venetian ghetto, according to Sennett, was to provide protection from the unclean bodies of the Jews and their sullying touch. The Roman ghetto, on the other hand, was planned as an area for mission. It was supposed to collect the Jews in one place, so that it would be easier to convert them.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ghetto.
2. An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ghetto.
3. An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated.
   • 2006, Gay tourism: culture and context (Gordon Waitt, Kevin Markwell, ?ISBN, page 201:

     Counterhegemonic spaces imagined as bounded territories ensure that heteronormativity is fixed beyond the borders of the gay ghetto. The rural and suburban lives of lesbian and gay people are made invisible and signified as inauthentic.

   • 2007, Romania & Moldova (Robert Reid, Leif Pettersen, ?ISBN, page 190:

     The student ghetto, southwest of the centre, is inside the triangle formed by [three streets] and is full of open-air bars, internet cafés, fast-food shops — and students.

   • 2001, Justin Taylor, The Gospel of Anarchy: A Novel ?ISBN, page 64:

     They're back in the student ghetto now, on oak-shaded streets lined with run-down houses filled with nonnuclear families of all varieties and kinds. Safe now from the tractor beams of the horrible good Christians, […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ghetto.
4. (figuratively, sometimes derogatory) An isolated, self-contained, segregated subsection, area or field of interest; often of minority or specialist interest.
   • 2016 January 10, Quentin Tarantino, 73rd Golden Globe Awards

     Ennio Morricone... is my favourite composer - and when I say favourite composer, I don't mean movie composer - that ghetto. I'm talking about Mozart, I'm talking about Beethoven, I'm talking about Schubert. That's who I'm talking about.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ghetto.

Synonyms

• (often impoverished area of a city): see Thesaurus:slum
• (figurative): ivory tower (academic ghetto)

Derived terms

• ghetto blaster, ghettoblaster
• ghetto house
• ghettoise, ghettoize
• ghettotech

Translations

Adjective

ghetto (comparative more ghetto, superlative most ghetto)

1. Of or relating to a ghetto or to ghettos in general.
2. (slang, informal) Unseemly and indecorous or of low quality; cheap; shabby, crude.

   My apartment's so ghetto, the rats and cockroaches filed a complaint with the city!

   I like to drive ghetto cars; if they break down you can just abandon them and pick up a new one!
3. (US, informal) Characteristic of the style, speech, or behavior of residents of a predominantly black or other ghetto in the United States.
4. Having been raised in a ghetto in the United States.

Derived terms

• nonghetto

Translations

Verb

ghetto (third-person singular simple present ghettoes, present participle ghettoing, simple past and past participle ghettoed)

1. To confine (a specified group of people) to a ghetto.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ghetto.

Translations

Czech

Noun

ghetto n

1. ghetto (the district in a city where Jews were compelled to confine themselves)

Declension

Dutch

Noun

ghetto n (plural ghetto's, diminutive ghettootje n)

1. Nonstandard spelling of getto.

Finnish

Noun

ghetto

1. Alternative spelling of getto

Declension

Anagrams

• ghetot

French

Etymology

From Italian ghetto.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.to/, /?e.to/

Noun

ghetto m (plural ghettos or ghetti)

1. ghetto

Derived terms

• ghettoïser

Italian

Etymology

From Venetian ghèto (“foundry”). Alternatively an apheresis of borghetto, diminutive of borgo (“village”). Initially used of the areas Jews were concentrated, later extended to concentrations of other ethnicities and then non-ethnic groups. The adjective and verb derive from the noun.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??et.to/
• Hyphenation: ghét?to

Noun

ghetto m (plural ghetti)

1. ghetto

Derived terms

• ghettizzare

Descendants

• ? English: ghetto
• ? French: ghetto

Further reading

• ghetto in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Portuguese

Noun

ghetto m (plural ghettos)

1. Alternative spelling of gueto

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sl?m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

Early 19th century. Originally slang, in the sense "room", especially "backroom" [attested 1812]; of unknown origin.

Noun

slum (countable and uncountable, plural slums)

1. (countable) A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:slum

   • 1855, Charles Dickens, "Gambling", in Household Words Volume 31

     Go to the half built-upon slums behind Battlebridge […] you will find groups of boys […] squatting in the mud, among the rubbish, the broken bricks, the dust-heaps, and the fragments of timber […]

   • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xvi:

     I saw that most of those who were spending from eight to fifteen pounds monthly had the advantage of scholarships. I had before me examples of much simpler living. I came across a fair number of poor students living more humbly than I. One of them was staying in the slums in a room at two shillings a week and living on two pence worth of cocoa and bread per meal from Lockhart's cheap Cocoa Rooms.
2. (slang, uncountable) Inexpensive trinkets awarded as prizes in a carnival game.

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

slum (third-person singular simple present slums, present participle slumming, simple past and past participle slummed)

1. (intransitive) To visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own.

Derived terms

• slum it
• slummer

Etymology 2

See slumgullion.

Noun

slum (uncountable)

1. (slang) Slumgullion; a meat-based stew.

Further reading

• slum on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Lums, MLUs, UMLS, lums

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?slum]
• Rhymes: -um

Noun

slum m

1. slum (dilapidated neighborhood)

Further reading

• slum in Kartotéka Novo?eského lexikálního archivu

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

slum m (definite singular slummen, indefinite plural slummar, definite plural slummane)

1. a slum

References

• “slum” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Westrobothnian

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -???m

Noun

slum f (definite sluma)

1. Old, sour and blue buttermilk without cream.