From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishghettoghet‧to /ˈɡetəʊ $ -toʊ/ ●○○ noun (plural ghettos or ghettoes) [countable] 1 SSRTOWNa part of a city where people of a particular race or class, especially people who are poor, live separately from the rest of the people in the city. This word is sometimes considered offensive. → slum unemployment in the ghetto► see thesaurus at area2 SSRHa part of a city where Jews were forced to live in the past the Warsaw ghetto
Examples from the Corpus
ghetto• His office marked the edge of the executive ghetto.• Not only are the men dependent on welfare, but many of the scars from ghetto crime stem directly from that dependency.• Ottovina lived on the South Side, in the Italian ghetto, and barely spoke any English at all.• the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw• I once lived for three months in a North Philadelphia ghetto.• Burnt-out old hacks explained a sudden new lease of life, promising their days in the public-relations ghetto were over.• Rap music began in the ghettos of New York and Washington.• a novel about life in the ghettos of New York• Bobby, gay and slender and handsome, has always lived in the ghetto.• The High Synagogue now houses a textile museum and you may buy tickets here for all the museums in the ghetto.• In Sanchersville, she opened a storefront law office perforating the heart of the ghetto.Origin ghetto (1600-1700) Italian perhaps from getto “place where metals are melted and made into things”; because a 16th-century ghetto in Venice was where such a place had once existed 