slum

Etymology 1

First attested in 1812. originally slang, in the sense "room", especially "backroom", of unknown origin.

noun

1. (countable) A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.
   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 […] 1855, Charles Dickens, “Gambling”, in Household Words, volume 31
   I saw that most of those who were spending from eight to fifteen pounds monthly had the advantage of scholarships. I had before me examples of much simpler living. I came across a fair number of poor students living more humbly than I. One of them was staying in the slums in a room at two shillings a week and living on two pence worth of cocoa and bread per meal from Lockhart's cheap Cocoa Rooms. 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xvi
   Pearson's London was what we now call central London, and much of it was slums. Today most of us wouldn't say no to a pied à terre in Clerkenwell, but in 1850 it was a slum. Drury Lane? A slum. Seven Dials and Covent Garden? Holborn and Finsbury? Slums. 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, page 16
2. (slang, uncountable) Inexpensive trinkets awarded as prizes in a carnival game.
   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. 1956, Theron Fox, How to Make Money with Carnival Games, page 58
   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. 1976, Mary Carey, George Sherman, A compendium of bunk: or, How to spot a con artist
   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. 2009, Richard Margittay, Carnival Games: the Perfect Crimes

verb

1. (intransitive) To visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own.
   When you meet the girl who wouldn't et cetera you will tell her that your are slumming, visiting your own six A.M. Lower East Side of the soul on a lark, stepping nimbly between the piles of garbage to the gay marimba rhythms in your head. 1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, page 4
   While slumming had long been an indulgence; if not liberty, of many well-to-do men (and some women), the intimate theaters created by Prohibition brought together elements of normally disparate social groups through a special form of bonding, breaking the law and enjoying it. 2020, David Rosen, Prohibition New York City, Arcadia Publishing, page 110
2. (intransitive, UK, slang, dated) To saunter about in a disreputable manner.

Etymology 2

See slumgullion.

noun

1. (slang) Slumgullion; a meat-based stew.

Etymology 3

noun

1. (UK, obsolete, slang) Nonsense; humbug.
   And this, without more slum began, / Over a flowing pot-house can, / To settle, without botheration, / The rigs of this here tip-top nation. 1820, Thomas Moore, W. Simpkin, R. Marshall, Jack Randall's Diary of Proceedings at the House of Call for Genius