Meaning & use
community service
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
Unpaid work done to help the people in a local area, often required of a student or an offender.
Grammar: Uncountable: do community service, not a community service.
Patterns
- do community service
- community service order
Students must complete forty hours of community service to graduate.
The judge sentenced him to community service.
She did community service at a food bank.
nouncountable
A public activity or program provided to benefit local residents.
Grammar: Countable: a community service such as a free clinic.
Patterns
- provide a community service
The library offers a community service for job seekers.
Free legal advice is a valuable community service.
The fire department runs a community service for seniors.
Word forms
| plural | community services |
|---|
Common combinations
- do community service
- He had to do community service for graffiti.
- sentenced to community service
- The teen was sentenced to community service.
- hours of community service
- She logged fifty hours of community service.
- community service project
- Our class chose a community service project.
Synonyms and how they differ
- volunteering
- Volunteering is freely chosen, while community service may be required.
- public service
- Public service usually means a government job or duty.
- unpaid work
- Unpaid work is wider and may not benefit the community.
Word family
Commonly confused: community service or civil service?
community service vs civil service
The civil service is the government's administrative staff, not unpaid work.
Practice
A judge orders a teenager to clean parks without pay. This is ___.
Choose one answer.
Unpaid work ordered to help the area is community service. Civil service means government employment.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “community service”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.