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ghetto Definition

ghetto (getō)

noun pl. -·tos or -·toes

  1. in certain European cities, a section to which Jews were formerly restricted
  2. any section of a city in which many members of some minority group live, or to which they are restricted as by economic pressure or social discrimination

Etymology: It, lit., foundry (< gettare, to pour < VL *jectare, for L jactare, to throw, cast), name of a quarter in Venice occupied by Jews, orig. location of a cannon foundry

ghetto Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • escape: I didn't want to escape the disability ghetto only to lock myself into a virtual ghetto.
  • create: With taxpayers billions, New Labor is creating a new ghetto.
  • become: Should the Western Balkans become a new ghetto inside Europe?
  • form: The first is to withdraw from the world and form a Christian ghetto.
  • have: Then the people in their areas wonder why they have a ghetto?
  • leave: To start with, you almost never leave the ghetto itself - perhaps once a week to pray at the dazzling Imam Reza shrine.

Adjective modifier

  • Jewish: In order to get there, he has to pass through a Jewish ghetto.
  • Polish: Labor MP Ms King, who is Jewish, said Gaza was " the same in nature " as the infamous Polish ghetto.
  • urban: These are no mean street kids, desperate for cash in an urban ghetto.
  • gay: This is not about creating a ' gay ghetto ' - obviously LGBT people live all over the city.
  • ethnic: The people in the center of the ethnic ghetto normally live in the worse housing, and areas.
  • black: The result was riots in black ghettos in East Coast cities.

Modifies a noun

  • blaster: Indeed, he can't resist slipping a CD of early mixes into a nearby ghetto blaster.
  • blasters: At least 10 score pirates had answered our call, bringing with them beat boxes and ghetto blasters to form our sound system.
  • uprising: The photographs range from the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 to the ghetto uprisings in 1968.
  • mentality: We must discard our ghetto mentality and break down the barriers between them and us.
  • kid: Recently I saw a documentary about some Hispanic ghetto kids in a school in Los Angeles.
  • youth: Damian Marley: Welcome to Jamrock Jamaica: Ghetto Youths: GY1.

Noun used with modifier

  • city: Like many other small towns in Iowa today, it resembles much more an inner city ghetto than a Norman Rockwell painting.
  • poverty: Do such areas exhibit features of socially mobile neighborhoods or do they show signs of drifting toward poverty ghetto conditions?

Browse dictionary entries near ghetto

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  10. GFSK
  1. ghetto blaster
  2. ghettoize
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