poor house
Historic pauper residence
A poorhouse was an institution, common in the 19th and early 20th centuries, where people too destitute to support themselves were housed at public expense.
Conditions were often harsh and stigmatizing.
The term survives mainly in the expression end up in the poorhouse, meaning to become financially ruined: If we keep spending like this, we'll wind up in the poorhouse.
Usually spelled as one word: poorhouse.
- last resortFinal available option
- workhouseInstitution housing poor laborers
- parish reliefChurch-administered assistance for indigent
- indigentExtremely poor, lacking necessities
- soup kitchenFacility feeding the poor
bread · tenement · pauperism · down and out · fallen on hard times · empty pockets · labor exploitation · poverty · hard times · alms · debtor's prison · hunger · Victorian novels · class disparity · stigmatization · almshouse · misery · cold
poor housemansion
Large, stately home
palace · estate · manor · villa · stately home