SLUM

[noun] [C] - a very poor and crowded area, esp. of a city, where the houses are in an extremely bad state and the living conditions are very lowShe was brought up in the slums of Lima. [C]Slums housing many of the city's 2 million residents are swelling alarmingly. [C]Most of the villages in the north of the country are virtually rural slums. [C]Over half of the inhabitants of this city live in slum conditions. [U](informal disapproving) A slum can also be a very untidy or dirty place.This flat would be an absolute slum if I wasn't here to clean it. [C]