public service

public service (plural public services)

1. (US) A service performed for the public good, especially by a nonprofit organization but sometimes also provided by a for-profit enterprise or a trade association.

   This has been a public service announcement from the Advertising Council.

2. (US) The business of providing an important commodity (such as water, electricity, or gas) or a service (such as public transportation, communications, or community health centers) to the general public, often in the form of a publicly or privately owned public utility or a publicly funded nonprofit organization (e.g. community health center, public hospital). (Fire departments, police, courts, public schools, military, e.g., are considered part of the public sector, but not usually called public services.)
3. (US) Government employment, especially in the civil service.
   • 1971, Johnson, Lyndon, “"I feel like I have already been here a year"”, in The Vantage Point‎, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, LCCN 74-102146, OCLC 1067880747, page 18:

     In spite of more than three decades of public service, I knew I was an unknown quantity to many of my countrymen and to much of the world when I assumed office.

4. (UK) A service such as health care, transport, or waste removal usually provided by the government to the general public; often called a public sector organization in US English.
   • 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 188, number 23, page 19:

     In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. […]

• publification

From English public service.

public service c (uncountable)

1. public broadcasting; public sector television and radio broadcasters regarded as a collective.

   Vi värnar public service och ger stöd för kommersiell journalistik i hela landet.

   We uphold public broadcasting and support commercial journalism in the whole country.