ghetti

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.)
   • 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.2009, Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city, →ISBN, page 25
2. 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.1998, Steven J. L. Taylor, Desegregation in Boston and Buffalo: The Influence of Local Leaders, →ISBN, page 15

   Synonyms:

   barrio, bad part of town, estate, favela, Hell's Kitchen, jects, projects, scheme, shantytown, sink estate

3. 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.2006, Gay tourism: culture and context, Gordon Waitt, Kevin Markwell, →ISBN, page 201
4. (derogatory, figuratively, sometimes) 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.1983, Eric S. Rabkin, Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 249

   Synonyms:

   ivory tower

See all 9 meanings of ghetto