Literally, "little towns"

• Former Jewish settlements
• Places such as Anatevka in "Fiddler on the Roof"
• Jewish communities
• Old Jewish communities
• Pre-WWII villages of Eastern Europe
• Small Jewish communities of old
• Isaac Bashevis Singer settings

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (plural of shtetl English)

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
shtetl \shtetl\ (sht[e^]t"'l); pl. Eng. shtetls (sht[e^]t"'lz), Yiddish shtetlach (sht[e^]t"l[aum]kh)., n. A village or small town; -- usually referring to Jewish towns in Eastern Europe.