shantytown

noun

Definition of shantytownnext
as in jungle
a usually poor town or a part of a town where the people live in shanties

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of shantytown Late one night in Payatas, a shantytown near a garbage dump in Manila’s outskirts, Santiago knocked on the door of a funeral office. — Sheila Coronel, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2026 In the brightly billboarded carcass of a West Coast city, private security shields the corporate enclaves of a tech élite from the shantytowns of the economically superfluous. — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026 During this time, Paksa was volunteering with a Peronist unidad básica (grassroots unit) in a shantytown close to her home in the midsize city of Castelar, which coincided with a heightened focus on state violence in her work. — Daniel R. Quiles, Artforum, 1 Mar. 2026 Their target was the Comando Vermelho (CV), or Red Command, a criminal organization that has ruled these hillside shantytowns for decades. — Alessandra Freitas, CNN Money, 9 Nov. 2025 See All Example Sentences for shantytown
Recent Examples of Synonyms for shantytown
  1. jungle
  2. favela
  3. encampment
  4. Hooverville
Noun
  • Previous dinners explored the floating markets of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s islands, and its jungle regions.
    — Karen Yuan, Vogue, 3 July 2026
  • There is no road to Chuao, and it is surrounded by thick jungle, so everything in the town has to be brought there by boat.
    — Armando Ledezma, New Yorker, 30 June 2026
Definition of jungle
Noun
  • There's also the time he got lost in a favela in Brazil with a carful of German fans.
    — Wendy Grossman Kantor, PEOPLE, 11 June 2026
  • But soccer enthusiast Rafael Gomes says that the reality of life in the favela has sometimes caught up with them.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 4 June 2026
Definition of favela
Noun
  • The city, said Gardner, already spends millions on encampment abatement contracts.
    — Hema Sivanandam, Mercury News, 6 July 2026
  • Poor went on to serve in the 13th Massachusetts Regiment in the Saratoga Campaign and the Valley Forge winter encampment.
    — Catherine Messier, The Providence Journal, 4 July 2026
Definition of encampment
Noun
  • Our lead, Joe Rance (Callum Turner), trudges to campus from a Hooverville; later, the coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), pokes around his crew’s lockers to count the holes in their shoes.
    — Amy Nicholson, New York Times, 24 Dec. 2023
Definition of Hooverville

Browse Nearby Words

shanty
shantytown
shantytowns
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Cite this Entry

“Shantytown.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/shantytown. Accessed 9 Jul. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on shantytown

Nglish: Translation of shantytown for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about shantytown

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