skid row
[ roh ]
/ roʊ /
noun
an area of cheap barrooms and run-down hotels, frequented by alcoholics and vagrants.
Also called
Skid Road.
Origin of skid row
1930–35,
Americanism; earlier
skid road an area of a town frequented by loggers, originally a skidway
Words nearby skid row
British Dictionary definitions for skid road (1 of 2)
skid road
noun (in the US and Canada)
a track made of a set of logs laid transversely on which freshly cut timber can be hauled
- (in the West) the part of a town frequented by loggers
- another term for skid row
British Dictionary definitions for skid road (2 of 2)
skid row
skid road
/ (rəʊ) /
noun
slang, mainly US and Canadian
a dilapidated section of a city inhabited by vagrants, etc
Idioms and Phrases with skid road
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.