How to Use slum in a Sentence

slum

1 of 2 noun
Definition of slumnext
  • The person in the slum doesn’t have the money to go to a school.
    — Diana Tsai, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021
  • Other tech firms have come to the Dreams slum as part of the Favela 3D project.
    — Angelica Mari, WIRED, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Then the train passes a slum, where a boy stands barefoot on the side of the road.
    — Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2020
  • When the ship docks in Alexandria, Bella sees the slum poor.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 8 Dec. 2023
  • In the narrow alleys of the Karachi slums, the police move through homes, day and night.
    — Zia Ur-Rehman, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2023
  • The housing projects and this slum merge to the east of our neighborhood.
    — Mariana Enriquez, The New Yorker, 6 Feb. 2023
  • Putin spoke like a gangster, like a gopnik, like someone from the Leningrad slums.
    — David Remnick, The New Yorker, 24 June 2023
  • In 1954, the state of Maryland declared this neighborhood to be a slum.
    — Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun, 3 Sep. 2022
  • This takes her to the city’s slum areas, where gang violence is rife.
    — Martin Dale, Variety, 1 Dec. 2021
  • In 2010, three of her six children were crushed to death in their home in a downtown slum during the earthquake.
    — New York Times, 13 July 2021
  • Not everyone thought this slum clearance to be a good idea.
    — Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun, 3 Sep. 2022
  • The study found that 16% were from urban slum areas, and the rest from other urban areas.
    — Aniruddha Ghosal, Star Tribune, 11 Sep. 2020
  • It’s paired down close quarters combat in an inescapable slum, and the hits feel so real your own body will start to hurt.
    — Jordan Crucchiola, Vulture, 15 Jan. 2021
  • More than half of Mumbai's slum residents might have had Covid-19.
    — Eliza MacKintosh, CNN, 13 Aug. 2020
  • One of those projects was an elevated train line in a Caracas slum called Petare.
    — William Neuman, The Atlantic, 7 Mar. 2022
  • The viewer floats over slums, a strip mine, an artisanal sulfur mine.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2023
  • The block grant can also be used to eliminate slum and blight in the city, Grover said, but the council has yet to decide how the money will be spent.
    — James Whitlow, baltimoresun.com, 1 Apr. 2021
  • The names and house numbers of slum dwellers who are showcasing Covid symptoms are noted down.
    — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 10 June 2021
  • Anita is a slum-dwelling Christian in the megalopolis of Karachi, Pakistan.
    — New York Times, 6 Apr. 2021
  • As a fan of the coach, the January slum, every freaking year, is angering many fans.
    — Stephen Means, cleveland, 30 Jan. 2023
  • The Guryong slum has long been seen as a symbol of the gap between rich and poor in South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
    — Jessie Yeung, CNN, 19 Jan. 2023
  • In the urban slum areas, people have access to fresh water only twice a day in the morning and evening.
    — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 6 May 2022
  • There is a lot of gang activity in these different slums in Lagos and a lot of gang wars as well.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Apr. 2023
  • In May, a police raid on another Rio favela killed 23 people, and last year, a shootout in a third slum left at least 29 people dead.
    — Marina Lopes, Washington Post, 22 July 2022
  • Two-thirds of the city’s population lived in abject poverty in slums built in medieval times.
    — Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 26 Dec. 2023
  • The unemployed would be put to work in slum clearance, road building and other public works projects.
    — Michael Bernick, Forbes, 19 July 2022
  • There’s even one in 23 de Enero, a huge, desperately poor slum.
    — Alex Vasquez, Bloomberg.com, 4 Oct. 2020
  • Word had spread that the nun was prepared to take schoolchildren out of the slum, to a safer area, and so hundreds of students had gathered at a local chapel to wait for her.
    — Adriana Zehbrauskas, New York Times, 20 Jan. 2023
  • In Havana’s slums, a woman’s violent domestic ordeal turns public when a video goes viral.
    — John Hopewell, Variety, 4 Mar. 2024
  • Ideally, every city, school, hospital and home will reserve a certain percentage of land for nature so that all people—even those living in high-rise buildings or slums—have access to it.
    — Joyeeta Gupta, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024
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slum

2 of 2 verb
  • He sometimes likes to go slumming in bars around the city.
  • Along with goths, drag queens, rockers, leather boys and slumming socialites, the Limelight became the home to the ’90s club kid moment.
    — Alex Williams, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2020
  • The already legendary guitarist gets extra kudos for slumming it and taking the tube to The O2, rather than a limo.
    — Richard Smirke, Billboard, 19 Feb. 2020
  • Repeatedly slumming it in the NIT isn’t what anyone signed up for.
    — Bill Oram, oregonlive, 21 Mar. 2023
  • Auntie calls her a poser out to slum it with the blue-collars, an accusation Mildred answers with a slap.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 9 Dec. 2017
  • No matter how huffy the establishment gets about members slumming in Trumpworld, don’t expect the holier-than-thou act to last for more than a heartbeat after said members return to the fold.
    — Michelle Cottle, The Atlantic, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Toffs in the Tory party who despise liberal meddlers had the momentum at last behind their cause, as well as the thrill of slumming it with boisterous blue-collar types.
    — Tina Brown, Time, 6 June 2019
  • Abby’s beloved grandfather (Ron Cephas Jones, slumming it) gives her an old-fashioned wooden advent calendar.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 2 Nov. 2018
  • The reasons vary — scripts change, directors don’t share the actors’ visions, studio executives meddle, actors slum for a payday, whatever.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 22 Apr. 2021
  • He sometimes likes to go slumming in bars around the city.
  • Along with goths, drag queens, rockers, leather boys and slumming socialites, the Limelight became the home to the ’90s club kid moment.
    — Alex Williams, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2020
  • The already legendary guitarist gets extra kudos for slumming it and taking the tube to The O2, rather than a limo.
    — Richard Smirke, Billboard, 19 Feb. 2020
  • Repeatedly slumming it in the NIT isn’t what anyone signed up for.
    — Bill Oram, oregonlive, 21 Mar. 2023
  • Auntie calls her a poser out to slum it with the blue-collars, an accusation Mildred answers with a slap.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 9 Dec. 2017
  • No matter how huffy the establishment gets about members slumming in Trumpworld, don’t expect the holier-than-thou act to last for more than a heartbeat after said members return to the fold.
    — Michelle Cottle, The Atlantic, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Toffs in the Tory party who despise liberal meddlers had the momentum at last behind their cause, as well as the thrill of slumming it with boisterous blue-collar types.
    — Tina Brown, Time, 6 June 2019
  • Abby’s beloved grandfather (Ron Cephas Jones, slumming it) gives her an old-fashioned wooden advent calendar.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 2 Nov. 2018
  • The reasons vary — scripts change, directors don’t share the actors’ visions, studio executives meddle, actors slum for a payday, whatever.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 22 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'slum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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