Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being.
- n. Prosperity.
- n. Welfare work.
- n. Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need.
- n. Corporate welfare.
- idiom. on welfare Receiving regular assistance from the government or private agencies because of need.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A state or condition of doing well; prosperous or satisfactory course or relation; exemption from evil; state with respect to well-being: as, to promote the physical or the spiritual welfare of society; to inquire after a friend's welfare; to be anxious about the welfare of a ship at sea.
- n. A source of well-being; a blessing; a good.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable Health, safety, happiness and prosperity; well-being in any respect.
- n. uncountable Various forms of financial aid provided by the government to those who are in need of it (abbreviated form of Welfare assistance).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Well-doing or well-being in any respect; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; exemption from any evil or calamity; prosperity; happiness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. governmental provision of economic assistance to persons in need
- n. something that aids or promotes well-being
- n. a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous
Etymologies
- Old English wel faran "wellness" (cognate with Old Norse velferð, Swedish välfärd and Dutch welvaart.) Equivalent to well + fare. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from wel faren, to fare well, from Old English wel faran : wel, well; see well2 + faran, to get along; see fare. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Just like #welfare cures poverty. jeromeflipo Has human adaptability (to natural and social environment) increased over time feesch @nbk1 healthy is beyond physical - can welfare state or planet cope with rising population What are side effects of human lab rats dallaslistings Supervisors needed for our Outdoor Human Directionals!!!”
Gaea Times (by Simple Thoughts) Breaking News and incisive views 24/7
“In America, the term welfare is almost a dirty word.”
“It would give new meaning to the term "welfare state" if abortion was banned!”
“The research says that when white Americans, for example, hear the term welfare, for the majority of us, it conjures up a negative connotation regarding blacks.”
“Maybe we should start dumping the term welfare," she said.”
“In case you don't realize, the term welfare means a state of well-being for all of us, not just the Limbaughs or the Bushs or even the Obamas.”
“I assume the term welfare will soon be outlawed as we push political correctness off the edge of the American cliff.”
“When money is given to the poor, republicans call it welfare and they b! tch about it.”
“It was the favorite saying of a wealthy girl I dated briefly at school, a marketing major and self-described libertarian with sentimental notions of family and contempt for what she called the welfare state.”
“The reality is it's not just race, Michael Steele's right about that, but when you have folks like Mark Williams one of the key organizers of the T Party (ph) movement calling the President and Indonesian Muslim and welfare thug on his blog, those are racially loaded terms, the research says that when white Americans for example hear the term welfare, for the majority of us it conjures of a negative notation regarding blacks.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘welfare’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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Headlines & Newsmakers
frugality, environment, extinction, bible, killer, jazz, cloning, dead, god, moon, global warming, bailout and 340 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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bad memory
copper, anvil, oblique, thrust, shrine, welfare, farewell, bitter, faction, sectarian, tangible, spectacle and 134 more...
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Keywords, by Raymond Williams
From a book about life and death.
aesthetic, alienation, art, behaviour, bourgeois, bureaucracy, capitalism, career, charity, city, civilization, class and 99 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1076 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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US - What is Bill talking about - Sep...
The 100 most frequent words of Bill Clinton’s Speech to the Democratic National Convention
america, american, arithmetic, attacked, barack, believe, better, bill, budget, care, class, college and 86 more...
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solutions
one word (preferably / not a must). terms that solved, help solve or theoretically will solve the world's problems (past, present, future).
these can be general, umbrella terms or...veganism, neurotechnology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, globalism, sustainability, laws, ecology, education, immunization, switchgrass, Esperanto and 72 more...
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Realism
Words to describe the art during the Realist movement
reality, harsh, criticizing, working-class, labor, working, organized, status, satire, dark, masses, ordinary and 45 more...
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ESL Academic Word List
This is a list of academic words for students learning English as a Second or Foreign Language. It includes 570 word families that often appear in academic texts. It does not include words that are...
collapse, depression, colleagues, invoked, levy, nonetheless, likewise, so-called, ongoing, conceived, forthcoming, integrity and 558 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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Learned words
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
ailurophile, labyrinthine, lagniappe, colleague, anechoic, reglets, fluctuations, scalar, implicit, constitute, mortification, ambassadors and 629 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for welfare.
sakhalinskii "Charity begins at home." - Publius Terentius Afer Jul 30, 2008
brtom When I have thought of the welfare of the earth, the problems of its health and preservation, the care of its life, I have had this place before me ... Wendell Berry "A Native Hill" Jul 18, 2008