Noun

(uncountable) Health, safety, happiness and prosperity; well-being in any respect.

* , chapter=19

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare . Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.}}

(uncountable, chiefly, US) Various forms of financial aid provided by the government to those who are in need of it (abbreviated form of Welfare assistance ).

Noun

(en-noun)

(chiefly, historical, countable) A poorhouse, workhouse, welfare office, charity hostel, etc.

Government financial assistance, particularly employment insurance.

* 1984 , Michiel Horn, The Great Depression of the 1930s in Canada (Canadian Historical Booklet no. 39), Canadian Historical Association, p 10:

There were no jobs for the unemployed, however. And thus many hundreds of thousands went “on the pogey ,” although all available evidence indicates that they loathed doing so. To accept relief was an admission of defeat and failure, a humiliating stigma, whether the relief was indirect or direct.