Workhouse dictionary definition | workhouse defined

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workhouse

work·house

Use workhouse in a sentence

Obs. a workshop (sense )
Historical in England, a poorhouse in which able residents had to work
a kind of prison, where petty offenders are confined and made to work

workhouse

noun

A prison in which limited sentences are served at manual labor.
Chiefly British A poorhouse.

workhouse

Noun

(plural workhouses)

(UK) formerly, an institution for the poor homeless, funded by the local parish where the able-bodied were required to work.
(US) a prison in which the sentence includes manual labour.

workhouse - Legal Definition

n

A jail for criminals who have committed minor offenses and who will not be serving lengthy terms.

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Sentence Examples

Such too, to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the operatives of every denomination in England, which is the great workhouse of the world.
In 1635 the king granted the inhabitants of Halifax licence to found a workhouse in a large house given to them for that purpose by Nathaniel Waterhouse, and incorporated them under the name of the master and governors.
In the same year the first district nurse began work in Liverpool; and in 1865 the reform of the much-neglected workhouse nursing was inaugurated by Miss Agnes Jones and twelve nurses from St Thomas's, who took up the work in Liverpool.
In the Church of England the word is applied to a private place of worship, attached either to the palaces of the sovereign, "chapels royal," or to the residence of a private person, to a college, school, prison, workhouse, &c. Further, the word has particular legal applications, though in each case the building might be and often is styled a church.
There he met Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn, with whom he formed a close friendship. In 1768 he became preacher or chaplain to the workhouse at Berlin and the neighbouring fishing village of Stralow.

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