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Webster 1913 Edition

Noun.

;

pl.

Workhouses

(#)

[AS.

weorchūs

A house where any manufacture is carried on; a workshop.

A house in which idle and vicious persons are confined to labor.

A house where the town poor are maintained at public expense, and provided with labor; a poorhouse.

See also: work house

workhouse ‎(plural workhouses)

(Britain) Formerly, an institution for the poor homeless, funded by the local parish where the able-bodied were required to work. ^Wp
- 1909, Archibald Marshall, The Squire's Daughter, chapterII:
  "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. […]"
(US) A prison in which the sentence includes manual labour.