Definition of "able-bodied" []

• Physically strong and healthy: "It required an immediate end to welfare for the able-bodied poor” ( David A. Stockman). (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "If he hadn’t joined up, he could have been drafted anyway In April 1862 the conscription laws came into effect, allowing Confederate marshals to round up able-bodied men from eighteen to forty-five and their definition of able-bodied was fairly elastic, handcuff them, and march them off to fight."
• "Even men of good will were blinded by the fantasy of “sturdy beggars,” that is, the able-bodied poor, men unwilling to earn an honest living."
• "Unlike in many other wars, when majorities of able-bodied men readily volunteered to fight for a cause, and despite loud and sustained calls by government officials for American men to enlist in the military, most Americans during World War II were less than eager to make the ultimate sacrifice of citizenship when called upon to do so."