the.com/ghetto
Originally a Venice district where Jews were forced to live, later any area where segregation confines a group.
means A part of a city, often poor or run-down, where a particular group of people has been crowded together — originally by law, later by circumstance and discrimination.
from The word likely traces to 1516 Venice, where Jewish residents were confined to an island district that housed a foundry — 'geto' in Venetian, from Italian 'gettare,' to cast or pour metal. Another theory links it to 'borghetto,' meaning little town or quarter. Either way, the name stuck to the place long after the cannons stopped casting, and over centuries it traveled from that one enforced quarter to any neighborhood where a minority is pushed together, willingly or not — carrying the original weight of exclusion with it wherever it lands.
- origin
- from Venetian gheto, the city's old foundry island
- first use
- 1516, Venice forced Jews into that district
- linguistic drift
- became slang adjective meaning cheap or improvised
- irony
- now sometimes used proudly, reclaiming the insult