workhouse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English werkhous,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English weorchūs (“workshop”),^[2][5][6][3] formed from Old English weorc (“work”) + hūs (“house”).^[2][7][6] In the glossaries it translates Latin officina and ergasterium.^[5] The OED compares Middle Dutch werchuus (modern Dutch werkhuis), Old High German werchūs and Middle High German werchūs, all meaning workshop and formed from the Germanic bases of work and house.^[8] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *werkahūsą.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A building or room where work is done, especially where things are made; a workshop or factory: in the Old English Antwerp-London Glossary.^[8][5] Etymonline glosses the late Old English word as "workshop, manufactory".^[6]

Semantic evolution

By the mid-14th century, according to Etymonline, the word also meant a building for domestic chores and labour.^[6] From the late 15th century it named a prison or house of correction where the inmates were put to work; the OED's first record is in the Catholicon Anglicum of about 1475.^[8][6] The best-known sense belongs to the 17th century: in Britain and Ireland, at first an establishment giving paid work to the unemployed poor of a parish, and later a public institution where destitute people were housed and had to work in return.^[8][9] The OED's first quotation for it is from 1631,^[8] while Etymonline dates it to the 1650s.^[8][6] Collins describes it as a former English institution, and notes that in the United States the word is used of a prison where petty offenders serve short sentences at manual labour.^[10][11] The original sense "workshop" is now rare and chiefly historical.^[8][2]

Timeline

• Old English – a workshop or factory.^[8][5]
• c. 1475 – a prison or house of correction where the inmates are put to work.^[8][6]
• c. 1533 – figuratively, a place where something is produced.^[8]
• 1631 – a parish establishment giving work to the unemployed poor; later, a public institution housing the destitute.^[8][9] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1650s.^[6]
• 1639 – figurative uses of the institution.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (British, historical) A public institution where poor people were housed and fed at the expense of the parish and had to work in return: Her great-grandfather was born in the workhouse.^[10][2][8]
2. (US) A house of correction or jail where people convicted of minor offences serve short sentences at manual labour.^[10][2][11]
3. (obsolete) A workshop or factory.^[2][8]

Related words

• worker
• workforce
• work
• house
• workshop

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West