Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
1
7.7
- noun
- Formal
:
Secretario de Salud, Educación y Bienestar
- He was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration.
- the former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare
Examples
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The 1973 amendments placed the AoA within the office of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
Academic text (1991) -
Succeeding Martin, from 1973 through 1978, was Arthur S. Flemming, who had served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Eisenhower.
Academic text (1991) -
In 1979, President Carter appointed her U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, a post she held until 1982.
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On April 11, 1960, Arthur S. Flemming, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, was testifying before a Senate subcommittee on the subject of health needs of the aged and aging.
Surface Forms
Morphology
secretary + of + Health, + Education, + and + welfare
The phrase is a transparent, compositional government title: a learner who knows 'secretary' (a senior official) and the nouns 'health,' 'education,' and 'welfare' will readily infer this person is the head responsible for those policy areas. The 'Secretary of X' construction is a standard, cross-linguistically common title pattern, so despite being a specific historical department name the role and meaning are immediately deducible from the constituents.
Etymology
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare comes from a time when one U.S. government department covered three areas. Imagine one official holding three boxes labeled health, education, and welfare — that picture shows why the title means the 'head' of that old 'department' from 1953 to 1979.