Plural of ghetto: areas of a city where a particular group of people (often poor or a minority) is forced or confined to live.
From Italian 'ghetto,' possibly derived from Venetian 'geto' (foundry), as the first Jewish ghetto in Venice was established on the site of a foundry. The word came to English in the 18th century with its association to confined areas.
The original Venice ghetto (1516) is considered history's first, and Jewish residents literally had to live inside a locked compound with gates closed at night—it was a horrific restriction that shaped urban segregation for centuries. The word now represents any forced segregation.
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