Other forms: ghettos
A ghetto is a poor city district where one group lives apart from the rest. An urban ghetto, forced into the ghetto, ghetto walls.
The first was in Venice in 1516, where Jews were required to live on one island and locked in at night, and the Nazis revived the practice with far worse intent. The modern American use describes segregation produced by policy rather than by law. Note that the origin of the Venetian name is unknown.
1nounghettoA district where one group lives apart from the rest.
“The city's newest immigrants were crowded into a poor ghetto near the docks.”
ghetto is a district.
From the Venetian Ghetto of 1516, where Jews were required to live. The origin of the Venetian name itself is unknown.
Borrowed from the name of the Venetian Ghetto, whose etymology and original source language is unknown. Compare Italian ghetto.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA