noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A charitable institution where poor or homeless people are lodged.
2. 2
   an establishment maintained at public expense in order to provide housing for the poor and homeless wordnet
3. 3
   A workhouse.

Synonyms

All synonyms

workhousealmshouseasylumhalfway househomehospice

Etymology

From poor + house.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.