skid row Chiefly N. Amer.
(skɪd rəʊ)
Also with capital initials.
[Altered f. skid road (b) s.v. skid n. 5.]
a. Any run-down area of a town where the unemployed, vagrants, alcoholics, etc., tend to congregate. Also fig.
| 1931 G. Irwin Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 170 Skid row, the district where workers congregate when in town or away from their job. 1935 A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 107/1 Skid row, district in a city where tramps (bums) congregate. 1942 Crisis Oct. 314/1 Here, a short walk up from ‘Skid Row’,..is haven for men of all races. 1944 N. & Q. Nov. 120/2 A skidrow..is a district (mostly in western cities) where unskilled workers..gather to look for jobs—a district of employment agencies, cheap flop-houses, etc. 1953 W. Burroughs Junkie viii. 80 When the time came for my sendoff shot, I was assigned to Ward B—‘Skid Row’, it was called. 1959 New Statesman 26 Dec. 899/2 Described in a report by a church mission as the nearest thing to ‘Skid Row’ that we have, it is a festering slum hidden in a narrow valley between the backs of lush shops in Firth Street, and Caxton Hill. 1963 Economist 13 July 125/1 The grisly inhabitants of the numerous urban ‘skid rows’. 1977 D. M. Smith Human Geogr. xi. 338 The concentration of social deviants in the local ‘Skid Row’ produces freak figures. |
b. attrib.
| 1948 Sun (Baltimore) 18 Sept. 3/2 Salisbury was a skid⁓row alcoholic when he was committed to Eloise. 1962 Times 1 Feb. 5/3 The ‘skid-row’ pictures painted in Seattle. 1973 E. B. Ritson in Howe & Loraine Environmental Med. xvi. 216 The grim environment of the skid⁓row districts of cities tends to attract social misfits. 1980 N. Marsh Photo-Finish i. 18 He disguises himself..like a Skid Row drop-out. |