GHETTO • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ghetto

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noun

Ghetto n.

A quarter of a city where Jews live in greatest numbers. "I went to the Ghetto, where the Jews dwell."

By extension: Any section of a town inhabited predominantly by members of a specific ethnic, national or racial group, such segregation usually arising from social or economic pressure. The term is commonly applied to areas in cities having a high concentration of low-income African-Americans.

(fig.) Any isolated group of people.

(fig.) Any group isolated by external pressures, with an implication of inferiority.

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Etymology of 'Ghetto'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ghetto" Quotes from Famous Books

... strings, and was nearly 170 ft. high before the restoration, which has been going on ever since 1882. It was largely built of ancient material, and at the sides were two sphinxes, one of which (headless) has been removed into the museum, the head being built into a house in the Ulica Ghetto; it bears an inscription showing that it is of the epoch of Amenhotep III.; the other, of granite of Syene, is still among the scaffolding which surrounds the campanile. Lions crouch at each side of the stairs on the level of the top ...

— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... again some time after at the Vatican. His joy equalled mine, and he immediately plunged into confidences. One day, when straying into the Ghetto, he had encountered the old Jew of our adventure, bowing and scraping, and requesting the honour of receiving, him in his house. They entered; wine was brought to him by a dark Jewish maiden, of such beauty as to set his whole blood on fire. Since ...

— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... enterprise is sparked by the sunrise industries of high-tech and by small business people with big ideas—people like Barbara Proctor, who rose from a ghetto to build a multimillion-dollar advertising agency in Chicago; Carlos Perez, a Cuban refugee, who turned $27 and a dream into a successful importing ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... rather than a homogeneous municipality. Chelsea and Harlem and the upper West Side—all these are distinct and separate centres of community life. Greenwich Village knows naught of Yorkville, and the East Side Ghetto has no dealings with the inhabitants of ...

— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... chronicler of the period says that this Duke of Gandia was good among the great, as his brother Caesar was great among the wicked. Also, legend or history, whichever it be, says that Caesar procured his elder brother's murder in a corner of the Ghetto, and that the Pope on learning of it, became as if crazy, and went into the full Consistory with his garments torn ...

— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

Words linked to "Ghetto" : city district, ghetto blaster, quarter