noun / verb
slum
SLUM/slʌm/
A poor urban neighborhood with inadequate housing.
The crowded slum has failing walls, patched roofs, and inadequate drainage.
Etymology
Slum first meant a room, especially a back room, in slang. The phrase back slum then described a dirty alley or poor street, leading to the broader meaning of a deprived urban district.
In context
I presumed as much why must they always build a poor house or a Charity Hospital in the slum well maybe this wasn't the slums when they built it
More examples
- Residents of the slum organize to demand safer housing.
- The city promises better sanitation in its slums.
- Our wealthy cousins joke about slumming it at our neighborhood diner.
Forms
slum · slums · slummed · slumming
Similar words
- shantytown
- Specifically a settlement of makeshift dwellings, not necessarily urban.
- ghetto
- Emphasizes social or ethnic segregation rather than inadequate housing.