bidonville
French, noun/bi.dɔ̃.vil/
bidonville is spelled B-I-D-O-N-V-I-L-L-E (10 letters) and appears about once in every 1 million words in written French, the 34,445th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Bidonville is a French masculine noun meaning “shantytown, slum” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Ensemble d'habitations de fortune habité par des personnes avec peu de moyens, construit en marge de grandes…”.
What does bidonville mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculineshantytown, slum
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Ensemble d'habitations de fortune habité par des personnes avec peu de moyens, construit en marge de grandes agglomérations.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of bidonville
- bidonvilles plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce bidonville?
- /bi.dɔ̃.vil/
- \bi.dɔ̃.vil\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to bidonville
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is bidonville in French?
bidonville appears about once in every 1 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).