Filthadelphia
noun · first attested 1930s
The city named for brotherly love picked up a second name from its garbage.
A disparaging nickname for Philadelphia, based on the city's reputation for litter and dirty streets.
39.9528°N -75.1636°W · Q1345
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Usage
- DerogatoryUsed to belittle the people or place it names.
- Attested
- 1930s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Philadelphia
- In English
Filthadelphia
The blend swaps filth into the first syllable of Philadelphia, and it is also written Philthadelphia and Filthydelphia. Maurice Sampson II of Clean Water Action traces it to a newspaper reporter in the 1930s; the Swedish immigrant activist Sigrid Craig complained in 1936 that she was tired of hearing it applied to her adopted city. By the early 1970s it was fixed in suburban usage. Philadelphians say it about their own streets when the trash piles up, and it is still an insult when it comes from outside.