A foul back street of a city, especially one filled with a poor, dirty, degraded, and often vicious population; any low neighborhood or dark retreat; -- usually in the plural; as, Westminster slums are haunts for theives. Dickens. [1913 Webster]
Same as Slimes. [1913 Webster]

slum, v. i.

To visit or frequent slums, esp. out of curiosity, or for purposes of study, etc. Also called go slumming. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

slum, n. & v.
--n.
1 an overcrowded and squalid back street, district, etc., usu. in a city and inhabited by very poor people.
2 a house or building unfit for human habitation.
--v.intr. (slummed, slumming)
1 live in slumlike conditions.
2 go about the slums through curiosity, to examine the condition of the inhabitants, or for charitable purposes.

Idiom

slum clearance the demolition of slums and rehousing of their inhabitants. slum it colloq. put up with conditions less comfortable than usual.

Derivative

slummy adj. (slummier, slummiest). slumminess n.

Etymology

19th c.: orig. cant

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THESAURUS

slum

Augean stables, Bowery, Chinatown, East End, East Side, Little Hungary, Little Italy, West End, West Side, barrio, black ghetto, blighted area, business district, central city, city center, core, downtown, dump, ghetto, greenbelt, hole, hovel, inner city, midtown, muck, outskirts, pesthole, pigpen, pigsty, plague spot, red-light district, residential district, rookery, run-down neighborhood, shopping center, skid, skid road, skid row, slab, slums, stable, stew, sty, suburbia, suburbs, tenderloin, tenement, tenement district, the slums, uptown, urban blight, warren

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ROGET THESAURUS

slum

Uncleanness

N uncleanness, impurity, immundity, immundicity, impurity, defilement, contamination, defoedation, soilure, soiliness, abomination, leaven, taint, tainture, fetor, decay, putrescence, putrefaction, corruption, mold, must, mildew, dry rot, mucor, rubigo, slovenry, slovenliness, squalor, dowdy, drab, slut, malkin, slattern, sloven, slammerkin, slammock, slummock, scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark, dust-man, sweep, beast, dirt, filth, soil, slop, dust, cobweb, flue, smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff, sossle, sozzle, sordes, dregs, grounds, lees, argol, sediment, settlement heeltap, dross, drossiness, mother, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders, recrement, slag, scum, froth, hogwash, ditchwater, dishwater, bilgewater, rinsings, cheeseparings, sweepings, offscourings, outscourings, off scum, caput mortuum, residuum, sprue, fecula, clinker, draff, scurf, scurfiness, exuviae, morphea, fur, furfur, dandruff, tartar, riffraff, vermin, louse, flea, bug, chinch, mud, mire, quagmire, alluvium, silt, sludge, slime, slush, slosh, sposh, spawn, offal, gurry, lientery, garbage, carrion, excreta, slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria, faeces, feces, excrement, ordure, dung, crap, shit, sewage, sewerage, muck, coprolite, guano, manure, compost, dunghill, colluvies, mixen, midden, bog, laystall, sink, privy, jakes, toilet, john, head, cess, cesspool, sump, sough, cloaca, latrines, drain, sewer, common sewer, Cloacina, dust hole, sty, pigsty, lair, den, Augean stable, sink of corruption, slum, rookery, dirty, filthy, grimy, unclean, impure, soiled, not to be handled with kid gloves, dusty, snuffy, smutty, sooty, smoky, thick, turbid, dreggy, slimy, mussy, slovenly, untidy, messy, uncleanly, unkempt, sluttish, dowdy, draggle-tailed, uncombed, unscoured, unswept, unwiped, unwashed, unstrained, unpurified, squalid, lutose, slammocky, slummocky, sozzly, nasty, coarse, foul, offensive, abominable, beastly, reeky, reechy, fetid, decayed, moldy, musty, mildewed, rusty, moth-eaten, mucid, rancid, weak, bad, gone bad, etercoral, lentiginous, touched, fusty, effete, reasty, rotten, corrupt, tainted, high, flyblown, maggoty, putrid, putrefactive, putrescent, putrefied, saprogenic, saprogenous, purulent, carious, peccant, fecal, feculent, stercoraceous, excrementitious, scurfy, scurvy, impetiginous, gory, bloody, rotting, rotten as a pear, rotten as cheese, crapulous, gross, fimetarious, fimicolous, they that touch pitch will be defiled.

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