BIDONVILLE Definition & Meaning

bidonville

[ French bee-dawn-veel ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

plural bidonvilles

(especially in France and North Africa) an impoverished shantytown on the outskirts of a city.

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of bidonville¹

First recorded in 1950–55; from French, equivalent to bidon “metal drum, can (for oil, etc.)” (earlier, “five-pint wooden jug”; of uncertain origin) + -ville, combining form, in placenames, of ville “city,” from Latin ��ī�� villa; metal cans are often used as building materials in such towns

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Nearby, however, in the Ravine Pintade bidonville, or slum, Emma Labrousse is singing.

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Most important, they've rented heavy machinery, and employed local workers, to extract the tons of rubble choking the bidonville's entrances and arteries.

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By Tim Padgett / Port-au-Prince Backhoes and other rubble-removal equipment can't climb the steep hills and narrow streets of the bidonville, or slum, known as Carrefour-Feuilles in Port-au-Prince.

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More than a month after the Jan. 12 earthquake that ravaged Haiti, and which slammed Carrefour-Feuilles especially hard, much of the bidonville's clean-up is still being done with shovels and wheelbarrows.

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The venture is an economic engine for the bidonville and a sustainable one as well, since it provides an alternative to the traditional charcoal fuel that has contributed to Haiti's vast deforestation.

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