skid row
a run-down part of a city inhabited by poor people
TRANSLATION
skid row = ein heruntergekommenes Viertel, das Armenviertel --- GOOGLE INDEX skid row: approximately 10,400,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Prince William and Kate visit SKID ROW in Los Angeles
(BBC News headline)
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This neighborhood was the original Uptown, but it also had a SKID-ROW era that lasted from the mid-1900s until its restoration and gentrification began in the 1980s.
(New York Times)
(BBC News headline)
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This neighborhood was the original Uptown, but it also had a SKID-ROW era that lasted from the mid-1900s until its restoration and gentrification began in the 1980s.
(New York Times)
Did you
know?
skid row
noun phrase (American slang)
- a squalid district inhabited chiefly by derelicts and vagrants
(American Heritage Dictionary)
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The expression skid row dates back to 19th century America and is believed to have derived from "skid road", another term for a so-called corduroy road. In the Pacific northwest part of the U.S., logging has always been a key industry. In order to transport timber, loggers constructed corduroy roads by placing sand-covered logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area.
Corduroy roads built of huge logs and without the sand covering were the mainstay of local logging practices and were known as skid roads. Two of these on the outskirts of the mill towns of Seattle and Vancouver, which had become concentrations of bars and working man's slum, were the origin of the more widespread meaning of skid road, which then led to the term skid row, referring to a poor area.
If you visit a skid row, there are a couple of things you might run into:
- flophouse = called a doss-house in British English, it generally refers to a place that offers cheap lodging with minimal services (don't expect to find a mini-bar in the room). The term derives from the verb "flop", as in to fall or lie down heavily from being tired.
- barfly = someone who frequents drinking establishments or spends a lot of time in bars
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SYNONYMS
red-light district, tenderloin, Bowery, ghetto, slum
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Know the location and avoid skid row areas when visiting a foreign city."
noun phrase (American slang)
- a squalid district inhabited chiefly by derelicts and vagrants
(American Heritage Dictionary)
---
The expression skid row dates back to 19th century America and is believed to have derived from "skid road", another term for a so-called corduroy road. In the Pacific northwest part of the U.S., logging has always been a key industry. In order to transport timber, loggers constructed corduroy roads by placing sand-covered logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area.
Corduroy roads built of huge logs and without the sand covering were the mainstay of local logging practices and were known as skid roads. Two of these on the outskirts of the mill towns of Seattle and Vancouver, which had become concentrations of bars and working man's slum, were the origin of the more widespread meaning of skid road, which then led to the term skid row, referring to a poor area.
If you visit a skid row, there are a couple of things you might run into:
- flophouse = called a doss-house in British English, it generally refers to a place that offers cheap lodging with minimal services (don't expect to find a mini-bar in the room). The term derives from the verb "flop", as in to fall or lie down heavily from being tired.
- barfly = someone who frequents drinking establishments or spends a lot of time in bars
---
SYNONYMS
red-light district, tenderloin, Bowery, ghetto, slum
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Know the location and avoid skid row areas when visiting a foreign city."
