Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A shantytown on the outskirts of a city, especially in France or North Africa.
Etymologies
- French : bidon, gas can, oildrum (from Old French, bottle, tankard, probably of Scandinavian origin) + ville, town; see village. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In daylight, the bidonville is a motley jumble of houses, a few shops,”
“You are an Algerian and the place you are living is a "bidonville" in some depressing Paris suburb coming from a proud African Arab family and here you are in Paris without hope and the town in which you were raised was a department of France but is now desert redoubt for Islamic terrorists and tell me where you go from there. tonyburton”
“With the djinns banished, the house refurbished, and relations with the bidonville now clarified, Shah has turned his energy towards setting up a recycling project for the shantytown.”
“During the period when Dar Khalifa stood vacant, resourceful residents of the bidonville had tapped into its water and power supply.”
“The drive to Dar Khalifa - a left turn from a leafy suburban street with handsome art deco houses - plunges you, as though through some kind of time warp, down a sharp dip and on to a dusty road that leads through the heart of a ramshackle bidonville, or shantytown.”
“The ousted president is sent to the Central African Republic by plane, the "rebels" working for the CIA perpetrate innumerable massacres of thousands of president Aristide's supporters in the less well off neighbourhood, the bidonville, and established a regime of terror in the Free Trade Zones (tax-free zones), where important multinational companies such as Levis and walt Disney are operating.”
“El derrocado presidente es enviado a la República Centroafricana en un avión, los “rebeldes†al servicio de la CIA consuman innumerables masacres de miles de partidarios del presidente Aristide en los barrios populares, los bidonville, y establecen un régimen de terror en las Zonas Francas, donde operan importantes empresas trasnacionales como Levis y Walt Disney.”
“La vie de la petite Maure, dans un bidonville [shanty-town] d†™ une grande cité proche de la mer, est constamment doublée, dominée par l†™ épopée chantante, obstinée, orgueilleuse de la race que les maîtres d†™ autrefois avaient cru vaincre.”
“a south-eastern suburb, while the lead story in the Massy edition of Le Républicain was about a fire that swept through what it describes as the local bidonville (shanty town).”
“I came back one time during Ramadan and the whole bidonville was lit up like a Christmas tree.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bidonville’.
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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
fjord, mistral steppe, tornado, tsunami, polder, kiwi, koala, sequoia, Abominable Snowman, paprika, spaghetti, empanada and 299 more...
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not prime real estate
describing areas where the poor, unhomed and oppressed are found. Some of these didn't belong in miserable circumstances.
villa miseria, urban decay, urban blight, trailer park, township, tent city, Tenderloin, squalor, slurb, slum, skid row, sink of corruption and 35 more...
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Places
Baltrum, Bund, Xanthus, Argolis, Turkish bath, Fremantle, Cambria, Banat, Charente, Massif Central, Bourbonnais, Pampas and 56 more...
Tweets
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