Oxfam
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A United Kingdom-based charity focused on alleviating global poverty and operating a chain of charity shops.
"[E]xquisitely torn jeans adorned the 'Hard Times' cover of The Face, while the long macs and second-hand suits of the 'Oxfam brigade', with their doomy Joy Division rock and George Orwell haircuts, made a suitable fanfare for the advent of the dreaded 1984. In one sense Oxfam chic was a lament for the passing of the old working-class certainties […]"
Example
More examples"The Oxfam report says the global trade in arms is a double-edged sword, it can fuel and exacerbate armed conflict while at the same time diverting resources away from poverty reduction."
Etymology
Syllabic abbreviation of Oxford Committee for Famine Relief: originally the telegraphic address of the organisation.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.