1the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group:they don’t give a damn about the welfare of their families
2statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need:the protection of rights to education, housing, and welfare
chiefly North American financial support given to those who are unemployed or otherwise in need:critics feared an increase in inequalities in the provision of welfare
Origin:
Middle English: from the adverb well1 + the verb fare
welfare in other Oxford dictionaries
Definition of welfare in the US English dictionary
