Etymologically
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slum

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /slʌm/[1]

Etymology

It is shortened from back slum (“back alley or street inhabited by poor people”) (1825),[2][3] originally a slang or cant word meaning “room”, especially “back room” (1812).[2][3][4] Like most cant words it is of unknown origin.[5][2][3][6][7] Partridge suggests a back-formation from slumber, from the idea that such back streets were quiet,[8] and Skeat compared dialect slump (“wet mire”) and Low German slam (“mire”).[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A room (1812 in the OED, Barnhart and Etymonline);[4][2][3] Green's Dictionary of Slang records the cant word for a room or place of confinement in 1791.[10]

Semantic evolution

By 1825 the word meant a back street or court in a crowded district inhabited by the poor,[4][6][2] and by 1845 a whole squalid district of a city.[2][3] In 1812 it could also mean nonsensical talk or writing.[3][10] The verb to slum meant to visit slums for disreputable purposes or in search of vice (by 1860),[3][4] and, from 1884, to visit them out of curiosity or for charity,[4][2][3] a pastime encouraged by reform pamphlets such as The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (1883) and East End novels.[3][11] The sense “to live or go somewhere below one's usual standard”, as in slumming it, is recorded from 1928.[2][6][12]

Timeline

  • 1812 – a room (cant).[4][2]
  • 1812 – nonsense, humbug.[3][10]
  • 1825 – back slum, a poor back street.[2][4][6]
  • 1845 – a squalid district of a city.[2][3]
  • 1884 – verb, to visit slums.[4][2][6]
  • 1900 – slum clearance.[4]
  • 1928 – to accept conditions below one's usual standard.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A heavily populated urban area with run-down, overcrowded housing and squalor, often in the plural.
  2. Any squalid, run-down place to live.
  3. Cheap prizes given at carnival games.

Verb

  1. To visit slums or squalid places, especially out of curiosity or for amusement.
  2. To go somewhere or do something considered beneath one's station, often as slum it.

Word family

  • slummer
  • slummy
  • slumdweller
  • slumlord
  • slumism
  • slumber
  • ghetto
  • slumgullion
  • tenement

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins