Meaning of Slum | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.
   countable, derogatory
2. Slumgullion; a meat-based stew.
   slang, uncountable
3. Nonsense; humbug.
   UK, obsolete, slang, uncountable
4. Inexpensive trinkets awarded as prizes in a carnival game.
   slang, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Go to the half built-upon slums behind Battlebridge […] you will find groups of boys […] squatting in the mud, among the rubbish, the broken bricks, the dust-heaps, and the fragments of timber […]”

“I saw that most of those who were spending from eight to fifteen pounds monthly had the advantage of scholarships. I had before me examples of much simpler living. I came across a fair number of poor students living more humbly than I. One of them was staying in the slums in a room at two shillings a week and living on two pence worth of cocoa and bread per meal from Lockhart's cheap Cocoa Rooms.”

“Another place where, from the aesthetic point of view, a long tunnel would have been a real blessing, is East London as viewed from the carriage window on the old Great Eastern line. Despite a vast change from crowded slums to tracts of wasteland, due to its grim wartime experience, this approach still provides a shabby and unworthy introduction to the great capital.”

“Pearson's London was what we now call central London, and much of it was slums. Today most of us wouldn't say no to a pied à terre in Clerkenwell, but in 1850 it was a slum. Drury Lane? A slum. Seven Dials and Covent Garden? Holborn and Finsbury? Slums.”

“The lower the price of slum the better it is for the operator who can either give more of it out or build up the size of his big prizes. It is the big prizes that bring the play, even though the winner has to be satisfied with a piece of slum for his efforts.”

“Another hanky pank is the darts and balloons. No gaffs, no grift, nothing phoney. Game for the kids and the family. Get a dozen gross of slum and pass it out to the kids, and everybody'll love you.”

“Making twenty times his investment in only seconds, the concessionaire smiled as he awarded the nickel slum, often a stuffed worm, to each unwitting pigeon.”

“And this, without more slum began, / Over a flowing pot-house can, / To settle, without botheration, / The rigs of this here tip-top nation.”

CEFR level