ghetto
English · Français · Deutsch · Italiano · Português · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
ghetto
- /ˈɡɛ.təʊ/ UK
- /ˈɡɛ.toʊ/ US
- [ˈɡɛɾoʊ̯] US
Rhymes with -ɛtəʊ
Where it comes from
Borrowed from the name of the Venetian Ghetto, whose etymology and original source language is uncertain. Compare Italian ghetto.
noun ghettos · ghettoes · ghetti
- 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.) He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales.
-
An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.
Charlestown would also become one of Boston's three large Irish ghettoes.
Similar: barrio, bad part of town, estate, favela, ghetto, Hell's Kitchen, jects, projects, scheme, shantytown, sink estate, slum
- An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated. 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.
-
An isolated, self-contained, segregated subsection, area or field of interest; often of minority or specialist interest.
Abraham Merritt wrote for the pulps and never in his lifetime achieved critical success. Yet he had a devoted following in the science fiction ghetto who admired the clarity of his style and his power to evoke moods.
Similar: ivory tower
adjective more ghetto · most ghetto
- Of or relating to a ghetto or to ghettos in general. Those residing in ghetto communities were particularly ill equipped to adapt to the seismic changes taking place in the U.S. economy; they were left isolated and jobless.
- 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!
- Characteristic of the style, speech, or behavior of residents of a predominantly black or other ghetto in the United States. The music I liked was very ghetto and gritty. It was the stuff that didn't really cross over much, but spoke to a roots black experience. People don't understand this now, but the falsetto, crying singers were the most ghetto back then.
- Having been raised in a ghetto in the United States.
verb ghettoes · ghettoing · ghettoed
- To confine (a specified group of people) to a ghetto. This is, in brief, a part of the story of the ghettoing of a large segment of Denver's Negro population.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: slum, favela, hood, pauper, zone, skid-row, inner-city, barrio, shantytown, banlieue, projects, giudecca, jewland, jewry, bagel belt, yiddishland
Translations
Every language
noun area of a city where people of an ethnic group are concentrated
| Español | gueto, aljama, morería, barriada |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 隔都 gédōu |
| Português | gueto |
| Deutsch | Getto, Ghetto |
| Italiano | ghetto |
| Ελληνικά | γκέτο gkéto |
| Română | ghetou |
| Русский | ге́тто gétto |
noun area of a city in which Jews were concentrated
| Español | gueto, judería, aljama |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 게토 geto |
| 日本語 | ゲットー gettō |
| 中文 | 猶太人居住區 /犹太人居住区 yóutàirén jūzhùqū, 猶太區 /犹太区 yóutài-qū, 隔都 gédōu |
| हिन्दी | बस्ती |
| Português | gueto, judiaria |
| Français | ghetto |
| Deutsch | Getto, Ghetto, Judenviertel, Judengasse |
| Italiano | ghetto |
| Ελληνικά | γκέτο gkéto |
| Română | ghetou |
| Русский | ге́тто gétto |
| العربية | غِيتُو ḡītū, غِيتُو getū |
| עברית | גֶּטוֹ geto |
adj of low quality
| Español | poblacional, flaite |
|---|---|
| Português | favelado |
verb to confine to a ghetto
| Deutsch | gettoisieren |
|---|
Talk about this word "ghetto." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/ghetto. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. ghetto. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/ghetto "ghetto." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/ghetto.Cite this
@misc{ghetto_2026,
title = {ghetto},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/ghetto},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
