How to Use poorhouse in a Sentence

poorhouse

noun
  • And if that empathy leads to some solutions that don’t put us in the poorhouse, that’s a good thing.
    — Hannah K. Sparling, Cincinnati.com, 13 Dec. 2019
  • People who were forced by debt to live in the poorhouse had to subsist on six and half pounds a year, paid from parish taxes.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Your bottom dollar puts you in the poorhouse, but a pretty penny buys you a mansion.
    — Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 28 July 2021
  • On the other hand, a medical emergency could put you in the poorhouse.
    — Kathleen Pender, SFChronicle.com, 15 Feb. 2020
  • Diedrichs left town by 1863, and was said to have died years later in a New York poorhouse.
    — Genevieve Redsten, Journal Sentinel, 9 June 2023
  • Don’t evacuate the penthouse and condemn its residents to the poorhouse.
    — Deroy Murdock, National Review, 24 Jan. 2020
  • The only places for illegitimate infants were parish poorhouses, where children often died of neglect.
    — Time, 2 Feb. 2018
  • However, that last name — Taxus — could be positively lethal, leading us all eventually to the poorhouse.
    — Alicia Armstrong, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6 July 2017
  • House Republican counsel can outspend them into the poorhouse by obliging them to personally pay for private lawyers.
    — Charles Tiefer, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2023
  • Laguna Honda, as the poorhouse became known, was a place for city residents who were old, impoverished, mentally ill, and disabled.
    — Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 4 Jan. 2021
  • Then again, with a market cap of about $405 billion, last week’s audience-deficiency shuffle isn’t about to send Netflix to the poorhouse.
    — Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 1 Apr. 2026
  • In 1866, the fledgling city of San Francisco decided to build a four-story poorhouse for unlucky gold rushers.
    — Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 4 Jan. 2021
  • Like all poorhouses and poor farms in the state, it was run by a superintendent, who was responsible for deciding which citizens petitioning for help would be admitted.
    — John Carlisle, Detroit Free Press, 22 June 2017
  • Troublingly, there are even many Power 5 programs (see the financial woes at Florida State) that have spent themselves into the poorhouse.
    — Mike Bianchi, orlandosentinel.com, 3 July 2019
  • One 1909 report describes a Virginia poorhouse warden who stopped an older woman from wandering by anchoring her with a twenty-eight-pound ball and chain.
    — Marion Renault, The New Yorker, 23 Nov. 2022
  • Unable to support themselves, the two moved into a poorhouse in Wilkes County, North Carolina in 1943.
    — John McCarthy, USA TODAY, 24 Aug. 2017
  • The Eloise Asylum in Westland was once a poorhouse, a psychiatric facility and a general hospital that housed thousands of patients.
    — Nour Rahal, Freep.com, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Brains have surfaced from northern European peat bogs, Andean mountaintops, shipwrecks, desert tombs and Victorian poorhouses.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN, 25 Mar. 2024
  • In 1854, the county opened a poorhouse and farm and gradually added an insane asylum, infirmary and tuberculosis hospital to the property.
    — Nereida Moreno, latimes.com, 15 Apr. 2018
  • The locations have become perpetual draws for tourists and locals alike, with McMenamins’ distinctive custom artwork transforming once-derelict hotels, poorhouses, schools, lodges and churches – and retail storefronts, as well.
    — Andre Meunier, oregonlive.com, 28 June 2019
  • Prior to the spread of Christianity, there were no public hospitals in the Roman world; no orphanages, poorhouses, or old persons’ homes; no government assistance to help those in need or private charities to minister to the poor, homeless, and hungry.
    — Big Think, 26 Mar. 2026
  • The former Eloise complex, which once housed up to 10,000 patients at its peak, began in 1839 as a poorhouse in Hamtramck before moving to Westland and expanding into a psychiatric institution and a general hospital.
    — Nour Rahal, Freep.com, 8 Oct. 2025

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

Last Updated: