workhouses

Noun

workhouse (plural workhouses)

1. (UK, historical) 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

   Synonyms:

   bastille, poorhouse

2. (US) A prison in which the sentence includes manual labour.
3. (archaic) 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

See all 4 meanings of workhouse