workhouse
workhouse noun: an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work.
Noun
workhouse (plural workhouses)
- An institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work.
- Among other public buildings in a certain town which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, it boasts of one which is common to most towns, great or small, to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born, […] the item of...1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter I, in Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC
- "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." / "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve.[…]"1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC
- A prison in which the sentence includes manual labour.
- A place of manufacture; a factory.
- He carefully guarded his secret, but it got out, and, when he had his invention almost completed, some men broke open his workhouse and carried it away. It was afterward returned, but his plan had been copied, and from the copy many machines were made.1895, Will H. Glascock, Stories of Columbia, page 190
Verb
workhouse (third-person singular simple present workhouses, present participle workhousing, simple past and past participle workhoused)
- To place (a person) in the workhouse (institution for the poor).
workhouse meaning in Tamil
workhouse in Tamil
- அநாதை இல்லம்
Synonyms of workhouse
Forms of workhouse
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | workhouses |
| alternative form | work house |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | workhouses |
| present participle | workhousing |
| past participle | workhoused |
| past | workhoused |
Origin of workhouse
From Middle English werkhous, from Old English weorchūs (“workshop, place of manufacture”), from Proto-Germanic *werkahūsą, equivalent to work + house.
Questions about workhouse
- What does workhouse mean?
- Workhouse means an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work.
- What is workhouse in Tamil?
- Workhouse in Tamil is அநாதை இல்லம். See Workhouse meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is workhouse?
- Workhouse can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of workhouse?
- The plural of workhouse is workhouses.
Words near workhouse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: workhouse (page history and authors); workhouse (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “workhouse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/workhouse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.