slum

Early 19th century. Originally slang, in the sense ‘room’, especially ‘back room’ (attested 1812); of unknown origin.

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  Rhymes: -ʌm

slum (plural slums)

1. A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.
   • Charles Dickens, Gambling.

     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 […]

2. (slang) Inexpensive trinkets awarded as a prizes in a carnival game.
   • 1956, Theron Fox, How to Make Money with Carnival Games, page 58:

     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.

   • 1976, Mary Carey & ‎George Sherman, A compendium of bunk: or, How to spot a con artist:

     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.

   • 2009, Richard Margittay, Carnival Games: the Perfect Crimes, →ISBN:

     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.

• See Thesaurus:slum

• slumdog
• slumdom
• slumlord

slum (third-person singular simple present slums, present participle slumming, simple past and past participle slummed)

1. (intransitive) To visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own.

• slum it

• Lums, UMLS, lums

slum m (definite singular slummen, indefinite plural slummar, definite plural slummane)

1. a slum

• “slum” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• Rhymes: -ʉ̀ːm

slum f (definite sluma)

1. Old, sour and blue buttermilk without cream.