In Britain, in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, a workhouse was a place where very poor people could live and do unpleasant jobs in return for food. People use the workhouse to refer to these places in general.
例句
...a struggling Shropshire family which lived in fear of the workhouse.生活在對濟貧院的恐懼之中、艱苦掙扎著的什羅普郡一家人
英英詞典釋義
Noun
1. a poorhouse where able-bodied poor are compelled to labor
2. a county jail that holds prisoners for periods up to 18 months