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gentrify

verb/ˈdʒɛntrɪfʌɪ/

B2CEFR level
35/100Rarity: fairly common
NeutralRegister

To change a poor urban area by bringing in wealthier residents and businesses, often displacing the original inhabitants.

Within a decade artists' warehouses had been gentrified into loft apartments no artist could possibly afford.

Similar: upscale, redevelop, embourgeois

Origin: Coined in 1960s Britain from 'gentry', the class of well-born landowners below the nobility.

Topic: class in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: class