Word.ws English Dictionary

special measures

special measures noun: external administration for a failing public service such as a school or hospital.

Noun

special measures pl (plural only)

  1. (UK, plural, plural-only) External administration for a failing public service such as a school or hospital.
    • The LEA is required to support schools in special measures or with serious weaknesses.2004, K.B. Everard, Geoff Morris, Ian Wilson, Effective School Management, SAGE, →ISBN, page 228
    • Before the 2005 Schools White Paper, schools put into Special Measures have been aware that they might face closure if they did not improve within about two years.2006, Great Britain. National Audit Office, Improving Poorly Performing Schools in England, The Stationery Office, →ISBN, page 37
  2. (plural, plural-only, Scots law) Judicial systems to protect vulnerable witnesses in courts of law.
  3. (plural, plural-only) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see special, measures.

Questions about special measures

What does special measures mean?
Special measures means external administration for a failing public service such as a school or hospital.
What part of speech is special measures?
Special measures is a noun.

Words near special measures in the dictionary

  1. special licences
  2. special linear group
  3. special linear groups
  4. special master
  5. special masters
  6. special measures
  7. special military operation
  8. special military operations
  9. special move
  10. special moves
  11. special name

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: special measures (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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