old folks' home
10
2.7
- noun
- /oʊld foʊks hoʊm/
- Informal
:
residencia de ancianos
- We spoke jokingly of being roommates in an old folks' home.
- work at an old folks' home
Examples
-
There will need to be an old folks' home in every neighborhood and immense medical facilities to give proper care.
Blog text (14) -
It's amateur night at the old folks' home.
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People living in the old folks' home are old.
-
How do you maintain the old folks' home then?
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I hope everybody at the old folks' home is doing great.
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We met at the old folks' home.
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It's an old folks' home.
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I'm talking about going back to work at an old folks' home where I used to work.
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A nice old folks' home, he counseled, or one of those places where they think they're on their own, but there are nurses.
Fiction book (2001) -
Many elderly residents participate in activities at the old folks' home every week.
Synonyms
911
2.7
A place where people who need care live and get help
183
2.9
A place where older people live and receive help with daily tasks and medical care
8
3.4
A place where older people live and get care
1
9.3
A building that gives poor or elderly people free homes
How Independent
1
3.3
12
3.0
- Informal
10
2.7
183
2.9
- Specialized
90
4.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a residential facility for elderly people' is directly and compositionally derived from the constituents: 'old' (elderly) + 'folks' (people, in the possessive) + 'home' (place of residence), so the phrase reads naturally as 'a home for old people.' Although 'folks' is informal, the possessive construction makes the referent clear, and similar 'home for X' patterns exist cross-linguistically, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows the parts.
Etymology
Old folks' home comes from a very simple picture: old (older) folks (people) living together in a home where others look after them. So, it became a way to say 'a place where older people live and get care'.