Word.ws English Dictionary

shantytown

shantytown is the alternative form of shanty town.

Meaning of shanty town

Noun

shanty town (plural shanty towns)

  1. (derogatory, informal, sometimes) An urban settlement composed predominantly of self-built, low-quality dwellings, often occupied by low-income households lacking secure land tenure.
    • The navvies of the Midland Railway toiled for years to build it, enduring grim conditions in shanty towns that were built miles from civilisation. But build it they did, to form part of the Midland's main line between London St Pancras and Carlisle via Sheffield and Leeds from 1876.2020 May 20, Philip Haigh, “Ribblehead: at the heart of the S&C's survival and its revival”, in Rail, page 26
    Synonyms:
    Hooverville, slum

Forms of shantytown

pluralshantytowns

Origin of shantytown

From shanty + town.

Questions about shantytown

What is shantytown the alternative form of?
Shantytown is the alternative form of shanty town.

Words near shantytown in the dictionary

  1. shantyboys
  2. shantying
  3. shantylike
  4. shantyman
  5. shantymen
  6. shantytown
  7. shantytowns
  8. Shantz
  9. Shantzes
  10. Shanwei
  11. Shanxi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shantytown (page history and authors); shanty town (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “shantytown.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shantytown. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.