Definition of "ghetto" in English

noun

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.)

2. An (often impoverished) area of a city inhabited predominantly by members of a specific nationality, ethnicity, or race.

3. An area in which people who are distinguished by sharing something other than ethnicity concentrate or are concentrated.

4. (figurative, sometimes derogatory) An isolated, self-contained, segregated subsection, area or field of interest; often of minority or specialist interest.

   • 2016 January 10, Quentin Tarantino, 73rd Golden Globe Awards Ennio Morricone... is my favourite composer - and when I say favourite composer, I don't mean movie composer - that ghetto. I'm talking about Mozart, I'm talking about Beethoven, I'm talking about Schubert. That's who I'm talking about.

adjective

1. Of or relating to a ghetto or to ghettos in general.

2. (slang, informal) Unseemly 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!

3. (US, informal, often derogatory or offensive) Characteristic of the style, speech, or behavior of residents of a predominantly black or other ghetto in the United States.

4. Having been raised in a ghetto in the United States.

verb

1. (transitive) To confine (a specified group of people) to a ghetto.