as in favelas
a usually poor town or a part of a town where the people live in shanties
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Recent Examples of shantytowns
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
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
Farmers once proud of living and working their ancestral land were driven into poverty and forced into shantytowns.
—Nik Kowsar, Time, 2 Oct. 2025
These new shantytowns are plagued with substance abuse, violence and prostitution.
—Chicago Tribune, 17 Aug. 2025
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 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
Farmers once proud of living and working their ancestral land were driven into poverty and forced into shantytowns.
—Nik Kowsar, Time, 2 Oct. 2025
These new shantytowns are plagued with substance abuse, violence and prostitution.
—Chicago Tribune, 17 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for shantytowns
Noun
-
This particular tyrannosaur lived near the seaway’s western coast, which was full of jungles and forests.—
Laura Baisas,
Popular Science,
12 Mar. 2026
-
Swim or scuba through the crystal-clear cenotes, millennia-old sinkholes scattered throughout the nearby jungles—the cold waters make a refreshing alternative to Tulum's white-sand beaches.—
Carley Rojas Avila,
Travel + Leisure,
10 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
The complaints range from rodent issues to blocked driveways to squatting and the discovery of homeless encampments inside the building.—
Nicholas Williams,
New York Daily News,
17 Mar. 2026
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Her arrest came less than a week after Khalil, a 31-year-old graduate student at Columbia University who had acted as a spokesperson for the university’s encampments, was detained by federal agents at his Morningside Heights student apartment on March 8, 2025.—
Zoe Sottile,
CNN Money,
16 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Shantytowns.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/shantytowns. Accessed 26 Mar. 2026.
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