workhouse
IPA: wˈɝkhaʊs
noun
- (Britain, historical) An institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work.
- (US) A prison in which the sentence includes manual labour.
- (archaic) A place of manufacture; a factory.
verb
- (Britain, transitive, historical) To place (a person) in the workhouse (institution for the poor).
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Examples of "workhouse" in Sentences
- Could words of man go more deeply home to a young heart caged within workhouse walls?
- The alternative to the workhouse is to go home to Ireland and burden his friends for the rest of his life.
- Now it may come to this, as Mr. Belloc maintains, but it is not the theory on which what we call the workhouse does in fact rest.
- At Dover the number of vagrants in the workhouse is treble the number there last year at this time, and in other towns the lateness of the season is responsible for a large increase in the number of casuals.
- The workhouse is a good way, but we stuck to it, though very cold, and hungrier than we thought possible when we started, for we had been so agitated we had not even stayed to eat the plain pudding our good Father had so kindly and thoughtfully ordered for our Christmas dinner.
- (Here she pointed to two old monsters of carp that had been in a pond in Castlewood gardens for centuries, according to tradition, and had their backs all covered with a hideous grey mould.) “Lockwood must pack off; the workhouse is the place for him; and I shall have a smart, good-looking, tall fellow in the lodge that will do credit to our livery.”
- Now, you see, Jack, among the old folk in the workhouse was a man who had been at sea; and I often had long talks with him, and gave him tobacco, which he couldn't afford to buy -- for they don't allow it in a workhouse, which is a great hardship, and I have often thought that I should not like to go into a workhouse because I never could have a bit of tobacco.
- Now, you see, Jack, among the old folk in the workhouse was a man who had been at sea; and I often had long talks with him, and gave him tobacco, which he couldn't afford to buy, -- for they don't allow it in a workhouse, which is a great hardship, and I have often thought that I should not like to go into a workhouse because I never could have a bit of tobacco.
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