shtetl

noun

ˈshte-tᵊl 

ˈshtā-

variants or less commonly shtetel

plural shtetlach ˈshtet-ˌläḵ 

ˈshtāt-

also shtetels

: a small Jewish town or village formerly found in Eastern Europe

Examples of shtetl in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Foer’s novel, and its 2005 film adaptation, is about the Jewish author’s journey to Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather’s life during the Nazi liquidation of the family shtetl. —Andrew Silow-Carroll, Sun Sentinel, 30 Jan. 2025

Its center was not the nostalgia of the shtetl but the mysterious resonance of a more ancient landscape. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2024

Like many Jewish playwrights of the period, Miller, barely a generation away from a Polish shtetl himself, erased the Jews if not the Jewishness from almost all his reputational works. —Jesse Green, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023

Although my mother was born in a tiny shtetl on the outskirts of Kyiv, this was my first visit there. —Byjeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 27 Sep. 2023

Word History

Etymology

Yiddish shtetl, from Middle High German stetel, diminutive of stat place, town, city, from Old High German, place — more at stead entry 1

First Known Use

1949, in the meaning defined above