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almshouse

nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,621 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: almshouses

An almshouse is housing built long ago for the poor of a parish. A row of almshouses, an almshouse charity, live in an almshouse.

Many are still in use and still run by the charities that built them, some founded five hundred years ago. They are usually a low row with a plaque naming the benefactor, and they are among the oldest occupied houses in England.

Celuici · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of almshouse

  1. 1nounalmshouseHousing built long ago for the poor of a parish.C2

    “The old widow lived in a tiny almshouse that the parish had built centuries ago.”

almshouse is a housing.

Where it comes from

Middle English almeshous is alms plus house, from Greek eleemosyne, pity or charity.

  1. Middle English

    almeshous

  2. English, today

    almshouse

From Middle English almeshous, almassehous, equivalent to alms + house.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the City

Practise this word

almshouse in the wild

  • Although they served relatively small numbers throughout their history, almshouses remained an important part of charitable support and remain in use in the United Kingdom today.

    Almshouse

  • The Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty is a medieval almshouse in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

    Hospital of St Cross

  • The Almshouse is a historic almshouse in Stoneham, Massachusetts.

    Almshouse (Stoneham, Massachusetts)

  • The Widows' Almshouses, also known as the Wilbraham or Wilbraham's Almshouses and as the Widows' Hospital, are former almshouses for six widows in Nantwich, Cheshire, England.

    Widows' Almshouses, Nantwich

  • In 1556 he established a school and an almshouse for the people of the parish of Kirkby Ravensworth where he had been rector.

    John Dakyn

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.