| 释义 |
workhouse|ˈwɜːkhaʊs|
[OE. weorchús: f. work n. + house n.1 Cf. MDu. werchuus, Du. werkhuis, MHG. werchûs (G. werkhaus), ON. verkhús (in comb.).]
1. a. A house, shop, or room in which work is regularly performed; a workshop or factory. Obs. or Hist.
a1100in Wr.-Wülcker Voc. 185/3 Officina, smiðþe uel weorchus. Ibid. 186/27 Ergasterium uel operatorium, weorchus. 1350in Riley Mem. London (1868) 262 In the werkhous..12,000 of plaunche-nail..3000 of dornail. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 307 Þe werkhous þere þey dooþ here werkes. 1431–40in Glasscock Rec. St. Michael's, Bp.'s Stortford (1882) 6 Le Werkhous latomorum juxta cimiterium. 1497Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 324 The Grounde wher as the seid Ship was made & the Workehouse Belongyng to the same. 1575in Plomer Abstr. Wills Engl. Printers (1903) 23 My workehowse of printing. 1601Holland Pliny iii. vi. I. 61 The worke houses and furnaces of potters. 1697Lond. Gaz. No. 3260/3 There were taken with him several Pairs of Stockins wet, as if they had been taken out of a Dyers Work-House. 1752Hume Ess. & Treat. (1777) I. 445 His workhouse, of 20 cabinet-makers, is said to be a very considerable manufactory. 1881S. R. Macphail Hist. Pluscardyn Introd. 7 The court by which we first entered is occupied with stables and work-houses.
b. fig.
1548Udall Erasm. Par. Luke i. 34–35 The holy ghoste..in thy wombe, (as it wer in an heauenly workehouse) shall accomplishe the workyng of this holy babe. 1581Mulcaster Positions vi. (1888) 48 The liuer..the workhouse of thicke and grosse blood. 1645Rutherford Tryal & Tri. Faith 125 Christ being the very worke-house, and shop of the Devil, in which he wrought. 1684tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. iii. 112 The Heart is the Workhouse of life and heat. a1761W. Law Comf. Weary Pilgr. (1809) 81 The works of the devil are all wrought in self, it is his peculiar workhouse.
2. spec. orig. A house established for the provision of work for the unemployed poor of a parish; later, an institution, administered by Guardians of the Poor, in which paupers were lodged and the able-bodied set to work. The official name in 1928 was Poor-law Institution.
Earlier (and obs.) names were † house of work (1552, see house n.1 2), † working-house (1597–8, etc.); names of later introduction are † house of industry (1771–2 Irish Act 11 & 12 Geo. III. c. 30, see industry 4 b), poor-house (1782); for union workhouse, abbreviated to union, see union n.1 10 b, 12.
1652in W. Cotton & H. Woollcombe Glean. Munic. Rec. Exeter (1877) 156 The said house to bee converted for a workhouse for the poore of this cittye and also a house of correction for the vagrant and disorderly people within this cittye. 1653Act Commw. c. 13 (1658) 259 If he hath not wherewith to satisfie such Fine, the said Judges may adjudge him to the Pillory or a Work-house, or both. 1670–1Act 22 & 23 Chas. II, c. 18 (title) An Act for the better regulateing of Workhouses for setting the Poore on Worke. 1702Post Man 10–13 Jan. 2/1 The President and Governours for the Poor of the City of London, having enlarged their Work-house without Bishops-gate. 1731Flying Post 12 Aug. 2/2 His Mother, who was maintain'd by his Labour, being come upon the Parish, is sent to the Work-house at Wandsworth. 1782Act 22 Geo. III, c. 83 §18 The several Poor Houses or Workhouses to be built..under the Authority of this Act, shall be situate within the Parish or Township for which they shall be used. 1797Mrs. Berkeley Poems G. M. Berkeley Pref. p. cccx, Most well-regulated Bridewells are Paradises compared to the Oxford Work-house. 1836Dickens Sk. Boz, First of May, He believed he'd been born in the vurkis, but he'd never know'd his father. 1856Emerson Engl. Traits, Wealth Wks. (Bohn) II. 71 Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, and died in a work⁓house. 1922J. J. Clarke Soc. Administr. 83 The work⁓house or institution is the representative institution of the Union, and is the foundation of all indoor relief.
allusively.1690C. Nesse O. & N. Test. I. 58 Through Adams fall the world was become a work-house, an house of correction for mans sin.
3. A prison or house of correction for petty offenders. U.S.
1653Boston Rec. (1886) X. 26 The setting up of a Bridewell or Workehouse for Prisoners Malefactors &..poore people. 1772A. G. Winslow Diary 25 Feb. (1895) 36 She..soon got into the workhouse for new misdemeanours. 1870‘Mark Twain’ Curious Dream (1872) 83 Eggs..so unwholesome that the city physician seldom or never orders them for the workhouse. 1888Cassell's Encycl. Dict. 1964Federal Probation Dec. 8/2 The Workhouse receives and releases the work-release prisoner any time during the day or night, depending on his working hours.
4. attrib. and Comb.:
†a. in sense 1, as workhouse stable.
1569Richmond Wills (Surtees) 218 In the warkhouse stable, sadles, haltars.
b. in sense 2, as workhouse brat, workhouse cough, workhouse fever, workhouse inmate, workhouse master, workhouse system; workhouse-bred, workhouse clearing adjs.; workhouse sheeting, strong twilled unbleached cotton material used for sheeting, curtains, etc.; workhouse test, the test of good faith put to an applicant for poor relief by which he was obliged to consent, as a condition of relief, to go to the workhouse if required.
1810Crabbe Borough xxii. 60 Workhouse-clearing men, Who, undisturb'd by feelings just or kind, Would parish⁓boys to needy tradesmen bind. 1834E. Lytton Bulwer in Hansard's Parl. Debates Ser. iii. XXII. 891 In those states [of America] where a strict workhouse discipline was kept up. 1838Dickens O. Twist v, Then I'll whop yer when I get in,..my work'us brat! Ibid. xxxvii, Admiration at the workhouse-master's humility. 1846Blackw. Mag. Nov. 560/2 The Utopian expectations of many, that a strict workhouse-test would destroy pauperism. 1850Carlyle Latter-d. Pamph. i. 49 This brutish Workhouse Scheme of ours. 1857Borrow Rom. Rye xlii, He would rob..a workhouse child of its breakfast, as the saying is. 1859H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn xlii, Base-born, workhouse-bred! 1875L. Troubridge Life amongst Troubridges (1966) 116 A Workhouse sheeting jacket, body and tablier..to wear with dark blue frilled petticoat and sleeves. 1880[see Bolton]. 1889Conan Doyle Sign of Four ix, You would have made an actor, and a rare one. You had the proper workhouse cough. 1891C. Creighton Hist. Epidem. Brit. 538 There was no gaol-fever, workhouse-fever, or domestic typhus in general. 1894Oakeshott Humanizing of Poor Law 26 Nearly one-third of the workhouse inmates are sixty-five years old or over. 1925J. J. Clarke Local Govt. 316 Workhouse infirmaries.
Hence ˈworkhoused a., lodged in, or habituated to, a workhouse.
1837New Monthly Mag. LI. 115 Poor, workhoused wretches! 1895in Begbie Life W. Booth (1920) II. 204 The parishes can send people to us before they have become workhoused. |