How to use ghetto in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Ghetto means 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.). Example: “My apartment's so ghetto, the rats and cockroaches filed a complaint with the city!”

Examples of ghetto by meaning

nounAn (often walled) area of a city in which Jews are concentrated by force and law. (Used particularly of areas in...

The Venetian ghetto, according to Sennett, was to provide protection from the unclean bodies of the Jews and their sullying touch.2009, Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city, →ISBN, page 25
Established by the Germans in October 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Europe.2023 April 19, Lianne Kolirin, “One of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance tells of the bravery of those who dared to stand...

nounAn (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
By 1960 the growth and development of Chicago's black areas of residence confirmed the existence of the city's second ghetto.1998, Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960, →ISBN, page 253

nounAn 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.2006, Gay tourism: culture and context, Gordon Waitt, Kevin Markwell, →ISBN, page 201
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.2001, Justin Taylor, The Gospel of Anarchy: A Novel, →ISBN, page 64

adjectiveOf 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.2012, Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, →ISBN, page 50

adjectiveUnseemly 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!
That was very ghetto and disrespectful.2005, Ramon Carrasco, Army Life: The First Four Months in My First Duty Station, page 15

verbTo 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.1964, James A. Atkins, The age of Jim Crow, page 274
In the 1950s and 1960s, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia expelled more than a quarter of a million Jews and ghettoed the few thousand who remained.2001, Paul Johnson, Modern Times Revised Edition: World from the Twenties to the Nineties, →ISBN, page 526

More sentences with ghetto

We got tired of him carrying his ghetto blaster down our street every day.From the entry ghetto blaster
We got tired of him driving his ghetto blaster down our street every day.From the entry ghetto blaster
He rose from the ghetto to become a successful rapper.From the entry rapper
They lived in a no-go part of the ghetto.From the entry no-go
For the first time, we in the SF ghetto are beginning to get criticism – not brush-offs from literary snobs.From the entry brush-off
I dumped my ex wife's PT Cruiser in the ghetto, hoping a spontaneous strip party would scrap that ugly car down to the wheels overnight.From the entry strip party
Let that be a lesson to never take you dutty, stinking, ghetto self uptown again.2014, Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings, Oneworld Publications (2015), page 10. From the entry dutty
In clothes, language, and manner, he's hip-hop ghetto meets Italian mobster.2012, Bill Clegg, “Goners”, in Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery, New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN. From the entry lippy
So we eventually listened to the unfinished studio CD through his daughter Eve's ghetto blaster.2005, Michka Assayas, “Faith Versus Luck”, in Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, New York: Riverhead books, →ISBN, page 309. From the entry the shoemaker's children go barefoot
Crack cocaine done gave straight-up pimping a nosebleed in the ghetto.2004, Teddy Hayes, Blood Red Blues, →ISBN, page 75. From the entry beam up
Typically, recording studios are located in ghetto areas and attract youthmen from the surrounding ghetto communities.1997, Norman Craig Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica. From the entry youthman
Rather, you might think of it as the foreigners’ ghetto in the Shihlin district of northern Taipei.1994 July, Robert Storey, “South-West Taiwan”, in Taiwan - A Travel Survival Kit, 3rd edition, Lonely Planet, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 152…. From the entry Shihlin
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto, I’ve lived all over this town.1979, Talking Heads, Life During Wartime. From the entry brownstone
The gay ghetto is not a real integration of gays into society.1974 February 2, John Collis, Guy Hocquenghem, Joe Interrante, Mike Riegle, Charley Shively, Raphael Shively, Lionel Soukaz, “The…. From the entry modalize
New York is to me a scream — a kyke’s dream of a ghetto.1922, T. Dreiser, “letter”, in archived in secondary sources. From the entry kyke
Lasting until the beginning of the fifteenth century, this epidemic carried over into the Jewish ghettos, where a Tanzhaus was found.2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 205. From the entry Tanzhaus
Currently CRG owns record retail outlets in various cities, but none in the ghetto areas of these cities.2017, Marnie Tattersall, “‘Discount Record Stores’”, in Logan H. Westbrooks, Lance A. Williams, The Anatomy of a Record Company: How to…. From the entry mom and pop
I went from being ghetto to being boughetto.2014, Ms. Savvy, My Black Is Savvy & Unique. From the entry boughetto
Her masterpiece, the “ghetto burger,” is a two-patty cheeseburger tricked out with bacon that she tends closely in a fryolator.2007, Holly Hughes, Best Food Writing 2007, page 271. From the entry fryolator
His fancy-prancy equine stride took him a half block down the ghetto street into the dingy foyer of a tenement building.2004, Iceberg Slim, Airtight Willie & Me. From the entry thrilly
The dreadlocks in the ghetto dem ah shout out collie.1979, Barrington Levy, “Collie Weed”, in Shaolin Temple. From the entry sensie
Inadequate availability of termiticides, rodenticides and roachicides in the ghetto may turn our post bicentennial years into a nightmare.1975, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Extension: Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture; House of…. From the entry roachicide
In the Greek ghettos he tended to "Greekize" English words.1973, Edward Fischer, Why Americans retire abroad, page 159. From the entry Greekize
A facety ghetto rude gyal grateful for your remarkable lack of judgeyness, an’ ready to be dazzled and inspired by your penetrating insight.2022, Tom Wright, “Scene Two: Classroom”, in I Ain’t Dumb (Modern Plays), London; New York, N.Y.; Dublin: Methuen Drama, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry problem child
In the ghetto, the gentle Barber romances a defiant washerwoman, Hannah, who is played by Chaplin's wife at the time, Paulette Goddard.2021 February 5, Nicholas Barber, “The Great Dictator: The film that dared to laugh at Hitler”, in BBC. From the entry romance
A posse of Wiggaz rapped about da thug life outfitted in the bangingest, blinge blingingest ghetto superstar gear available at the Ocean County Mall.2002, Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts: A Jessica Darling Novel, page 57. From the entry bangingest
Although these would be of a maximum of 12 houses, he would prefer to pepper-pot rather than create the risk of "mini ghettos".1997, Institute of Housing (Great Britain), Housing (volume 33, page 22). From the entry pepper-pot
Jews, long exposed to some diseases in the confined quarters of European ghettos, had developed herd immunities through a long process of natural selection.1994, Alan M. Kraut, “‘The Old Inquisition had Its Rack and Thumbscrews’: Immigrant Health and the American Workplace”, in Silent…. From the entry herd immunity

Meaning of ghetto

noun 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.).
noun An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.
noun An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated.

Full definition of ghetto

Questions about ghetto in a sentence

How do you use ghetto in a sentence?: Ghetto is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “My apartment's so ghetto, the rats and cockroaches filed a complaint with the city!”
What is a short sentence with ghetto?: “That was very ghetto and disrespectful.”
What does ghetto mean?: Ghetto means 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.).

Adapted from Wiktionary: ghetto (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use ghetto in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ghetto. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.