/ ˈgetəʊ; NAmE ˈgetoʊ/ noun ( pl. -os or -oes )
1.
an area of a city where many people of the same race or background live, separately from the rest of the population. Ghettos are often crowded, with bad living conditions :
a poor kid growing up in the ghetto
The south coast of Spain has become something of a tourist ghetto.
2.
the area of a town where Jews were forced to live in the past :
the Warsaw ghetto
••
WORD ORIGIN
early 17th cent.: perhaps from Italian getto foundry (because the first ghetto was established in 1516 on the site of a foundry in Venice), or from Italian borghetto , diminutive of borgo borough.