Definition of "ghetto" []

• A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination. (noun)
• An often walled quarter in a European city to which Jews were restricted beginning in the Middle Ages. (noun)
• Something that resembles the restriction or isolation of a city ghetto: "trapped in ethnic or pink-collar managerial job ghettoes” ( Diane Weathers). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Then Napoleon turned north again and marched toward Venice, where the word ghetto was first used, and allowed its Jews out."
• "I use the term ghetto to draw a comparison between the treatment of animated films and the treatment of African Americans in America."
• "A lot of the criticism I've read uses the term ghetto - sometimes more specifically "pink ghetto" - to describe the site."