public services

Noun

public service (countable and uncountable, plural public services)

1. A service performed for the public good.
   • They feel that public service is a noble calling that calls for every citizen in one way or another.
2. (countable) A service such as health care, transport, or waste removal provided to the general public, often by the government.
   • In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19
3. (countable) The organisation, department or business providing such a service.
4. (uncountable) Government employment, especially in the civil service.
   • In spite of more than three decades of public service, I knew I was an unknown quantity to many of my countrymen and to much of the world when I assumed office.1971, Lyndon Johnson, “‘I feel like I have already been here a year’”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18