workhouse

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historically in Britain, an institution where poor people received lodging and food in return for compulsory labor

   The orphan was sent to the parish workhouse after his mother died.

2. 2
   noun

   historically in the United States, a prison where people convicted of minor offenses were required to work

   The judge sentenced him to six months in the county workhouse.

From Middle English werkhous and Old English weorchus, literally 'work house,' from work + house. The compound first denoted a workshop or place of manufacture. From the seventeenth century it became associated with institutions that housed and employed the poor, and later with certain prisons imposing labor.

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