shtetl

noun \ ˈshte-tᵊl , ˈshtā- \

variants: or less commonly shtetel

|Updated on: 9 Jun 2018

Definition of shtetl

plural shtetlach play \ˈshtet-ˌläḵ, ˈshtāt-\ also shtetels

: a small Jewish town or village formerly found in Eastern Europe

Recent Examples of shtetl from the Web

Born in a Polish shtetl, Bieber hustled tickets on Broadway, owned a bar called The Paddock in Times Square, kept a stable of racehorses, was quick to anger and gambled like no one has ever seen.

— max watman, WSJ, "Running With Runyon," 25 May 2018
Soutine, born in a shtetl in the Lithuanian part of Russia (now Belarus) in 1893, the tenth of eleven children in a family of menders (a caste below tailors), was an outlier all his life.

— peter schjeldahl, The New Yorker, "The Vulnerable Ferocity of Chaim Soutine," 7 May 2018
Out of the shtetl and into the mainstream of European life the new citizen-Jew duly emerged.

— roger cohen, New York Times, "Millenniums of Tribulation," 18 Dec. 2017
Aleichem both celebrates human comedy and chronicles inhuman tragedy, while spinning colorful webs of language that bring alive the teeming world of the Eastern European shtetl.

— jean zimmerman, New York Times, "The Story of Louisa Alcott’s Baby Sister, and Other Characters From Literature’s Sidelines," 29 Sep. 2017
Peres says his early idol was his grandfather Zvi, the rabbi of the Polish shtetl of Vishneva, who later perished in the Holocaust.

— Washington Post, "Posthumous book offers rare glimpse into Shimon Peres’ life," 12 Sep. 2017
After the convention, Bellsey became interested in researching the history of this Torah — and traced the scroll to Kutna Hora, a shtetl (town) in the former Czechoslovakia about an hour east of Prague.

— randall p. lieberman, Jewish Journal, "Temple ceremony recalls departed on Yom HaShoah," 1 May 2017
Mr. Obama tried to explain the unlikely friendship that developed between an African-American from Hawaii and a child of the shtetl who grew up to lead Israel.

— peter baker, New York Times, "World Leaders Gather to Mourn Shimon Peres, and Possibly His Dream," 30 Sep. 2016
One nightclub was a repurposed synagogue in of the town of Eišiškės, a former Jewish shtetl.

— pete brook, WIRED, "Savor the Awkward Atmosphere of the Post-Soviet Dance Club," 10 June 2014

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'shtetl.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.