work farm

noun

: a farm on which persons guilty of minor law violations are confined

Examples of work farm in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Poverty Hollow was a debtors’ work farm and is now, because time has a sense of humor, the site of some of the town’s most McMansion-y developments. Clare Beams, Peoplemag, 7 Apr. 2024 On March 31, the coroner’s office asked the Hinds County Board of Supervisors for permission to bury Moran in a pauper’s field on the grounds of the county jail’s work farm, records show. Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 22 Feb. 2024 After going unclaimed for months, those bodies were buried in a pauper’s field on the grounds of the county jail work farm, their graves marked only by a number. Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 17 Jan. 2024 The unclaimed dead of Hinds County, Mississippi, are buried along a dirt road on the grounds of a jail work farm, their graves marked with just a metal rod and a number. Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 23 Mar. 2016 But two of Emmett’s friends from the work farm, Duchess and Woolly, join them and force Emmett and Billy east to New York. Richard J. Chang, Forbes, 6 June 2022 Emmett Watson, 18, has just returned to Nebraska from 15 months at a juvenile work farm in Kansas. Joanne Kaufman, WSJ, 1 Oct. 2021 Margaret, Waley’s wife, landed at a Michigan work farm. oregonlive, 24 Sep. 2021 Her father, who had served in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army, was arrested when Ms. Liu was an infant and did not see his daughter again for more than 40 years, when Ms. Liu found him on a rural work farm. Washington Post, 17 Aug. 2021

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'work farm.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of work farm was in 1835

Dictionary Entries Near work farm

Cite this Entry

“Work farm.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/work%20farm. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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