Great Depression

noun

: the period of severe worldwide economic decline that began in 1929 and lasted throughout the 1930s and that was marked by deflation and widespread unemployment

After the 1906 catastrophe, demand for office space caused rents in the Block to spike, and insurance companies and steamship firms replaced artists and writers. During the Great Depression, however, rents dropped again and the bohemians returned.

—Gary Kamiya

From 1937 to 1938, during the height of the Great Depression, the Farm Securities Administration briefly ran a migrant labor camp in the area.

—Janet Balicki

Examples of Great Depression in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The daughter of destitute Eastern European émigrés, a product of Great Depression and World War II–era New York City schools and their melting-pot culture, Dresselhaus (née Spiewak) as a child imagined that the only career open to her was that of schoolteacher. —IEEE Spectrum, 28 Apr. 2015

Word History

First Known Use

1930, in the meaning defined above