slum
Americannoun
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Often slums. a thickly populated, run-down, squalid part of a city, inhabited by poor people.
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any squalid, run-down place to live.
verb (used without object)
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to visit slums, especially from curiosity.
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to visit or frequent a place, group, or amusement spot considered to be low in social status.
noun
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a squalid overcrowded house, etc
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(often plural) a squalid section of a city, characterized by inferior living conditions and usually by overcrowding
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(modifier) of, relating to, or characteristic of slums
slum conditions
verb
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to visit slums, esp for curiosity
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Also: slum it. to suffer conditions below those to which one is accustomed
Other Word Forms
- deslum verb (used with object)
- slummer noun
- slummy adjective
Etymology
Origin of slum
1805–15; compare earlier argot slum room; origin obscure
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He was as familiar with its gleaming mansions as its darkest slums.
From Literature
Such “slum clearance” is mentioned only in passing in the book, and as if it were self-evidently a positive thing.
Hussain Ahmed, 20, whose family lives in Machhar Colony, one of Karachi's largest slum areas where most of the population is comprised of Bengalis, does not have Pakistani nationality or an identity card.
From Barron's
Booted out of his royal Windsor lodgings, was slumming it on the king’s private estate in Norfolk.
From Los Angeles Times
She learnt that the child lived in a slum and could not afford to go to school.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
