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
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web The play follows the life of dairyman Teyve and his family in Anatevka, a fictional shtetl outside Kyiv, until the anti-Semitic czar kicks then out. 
Mike Wagenheim, Sun Sentinel, 18 Aug. 2022 How did Boyle decide what town in the former Yugoslavia would serve as the setting for Tevye’s shtetl? Peter Keough, BostonGlobe.com, 2 June 2022 The Polish shtetl was created by having the designers read the script and look for references of 1930’s Poland, and having a historian fact check their work. Wilson Chapman, Variety, 17 May 2022 That was the solution as well for the headstones of the fake shtetl’s cemetery. Cnaan Liphshiz, sun-sentinel.com, 11 Aug. 2021 In 2009, my dad and I went looking for my great-great-grandfather Zalman Rozman’s grave in Novi Veledniki, a small shtetl near Chernobyl dating back to 1545. ELLE, 15 Mar. 2022 Strasberg, twenty-one years old, was born in a Polish shtetl and brought up on the Lower East Side. Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2022 Her voice is unmistakable, a Valley Girl’s vocal fry mixed with Bernie Sanders’s metropolitan shtetl twang. Liana Satenstein, Vogue, 15 Feb. 2022 Born into a Polish shtetl in 1886 and trained as a tailor, the young man traveled overland across the European continent at the turn of the century, hoping to escape the pogroms of the old world for the promise of the new. Ben Croll, Variety, 25 Nov. 2021 See More
Mike Wagenheim, Sun Sentinel, 18 Aug. 2022 How did Boyle decide what town in the former Yugoslavia would serve as the setting for Tevye’s shtetl? Peter Keough, BostonGlobe.com, 2 June 2022 The Polish shtetl was created by having the designers read the script and look for references of 1930’s Poland, and having a historian fact check their work. Wilson Chapman, Variety, 17 May 2022 That was the solution as well for the headstones of the fake shtetl’s cemetery. Cnaan Liphshiz, sun-sentinel.com, 11 Aug. 2021 In 2009, my dad and I went looking for my great-great-grandfather Zalman Rozman’s grave in Novi Veledniki, a small shtetl near Chernobyl dating back to 1545. ELLE, 15 Mar. 2022 Strasberg, twenty-one years old, was born in a Polish shtetl and brought up on the Lower East Side. Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2022 Her voice is unmistakable, a Valley Girl’s vocal fry mixed with Bernie Sanders’s metropolitan shtetl twang. Liana Satenstein, Vogue, 15 Feb. 2022 Born into a Polish shtetl in 1886 and trained as a tailor, the young man traveled overland across the European continent at the turn of the century, hoping to escape the pogroms of the old world for the promise of the new. Ben Croll, Variety, 25 Nov. 2021 See More 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