skid row

[roh] /roʊ/
noun
1.
an area of cheap barrooms and run-down hotels, frequented by alcoholics and vagrants.
Also called Skid Road.
Origin
1930-35, Americanism; earlier skid road an area of a town frequented by loggers, originally a skidway
British Dictionary definitions for skid row

skid row

/rəʊ/
noun
1.
(slang, mainly US & Canadian) a dilapidated section of a city inhabited by vagrants, etc
Word Origin and History for skid row
n.

place where vagabonds, low-lifes, and out-of-work men gather in a town, 1921, with reference to Seattle, Washington, U.S., a variant of skid road "track of skids along which logs are rolled" (1851); see skid (n.); the sense of which was extended to "part of town inhabited by loggers" (1906), then, by hobos, to "disreputable district" (1915); probably shaded by the notion of "go downhill."

Slang definitions & phrases for skid row

Skid Row

noun

A street or district frequented by derelicts, hoboes, drifters, etc, such as the Bowery in New York City

[1931+; fr skid road]


Idioms and Phrases with skid row

skid row

A squalid district inhabited by derelicts and vagrants; also, a life of impoverished dissipation. For example, That part of town is our skid row, or His drinking was getting so bad we thought he was headed for skid row. This expression originated in the lumber industry, where it signified a road or track made of logs laid crosswise over which logs were slid. Around 1900 the name Skid Road was used for the part of a town frequented by loggers, which had many bars and brothels, and by the 1930s the variant skid row, with its current meaning, came into use.