GC: n

S: ILO – http://goo.gl/GmhwsJ (last access: 10 January 2016); ILO – http://goo.gl/hIW1ex (last access: 10 January 2016).

N: 1. social (adj): late 15c., “devoted to or relating to home life;” 1560s as “living with others,” from Middle French social (14c.) and directly from Latin socialis “of companionship, of allies; united, living with others; of marriage, conjugal,” from socius “companion, ally,” probably originally “follower,” from PIE *sokw-yo-, suffixed form of root *sekw- “to follow,” and thus related to sequi “to follow”. Compare Old English secg, Old Norse seggr “companion,” which seem to have been formed on the same notion). Related: Socially.
security (n): mid-15c., “condition of being secure,” from Latin securitas, from securus “free from care”. Replacing sikerte (early 15c.), from an earlier borrowing from Latin; earlier in the sense “security” was sikerhede (early 13c.); sikernesse (c. 1200).
Meaning “something which secures” is from 1580s; “safety of a state, person, etc.” is from 1941. Legal sense of “property in bonds” is from mid-15c.; that of “document held by a creditor” is from 1680s. Phrase security blanket in figurative sense is attested from 1966, in reference to the crib blanket carried by the character Linus in the “Peanuts” comic strip (1956).
2. Social security is the protection that a society provides to individuals and households to ensure access to health care and to guarantee income security, particularly in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness, invalidity, work injury, maternity or loss of a breadwinner.
3. Social security protection is clearly defined in ILO conventions and UN instruments as a basic human right – albeit one that a small proportion of the people on our planet actually enjoy. Broadly defined as a system of contributionbased health, pension and unemployment protection, along with tax-financed social benefits, social security has become a universal challenge in a globalizing world.
4. Social security (Government program), any of the measures established by legislation to maintain individual or family income or to provide income when some or all sources of income are disrupted or terminated or when exceptionally heavy expenditures have to be incurred (e.g., in bringing up children or paying for health care). Thus social security may provide cash benefits to persons faced with sickness and disability, unemployment, crop failure, loss of the marital partner, maternity, responsibility for the care of young children, or retirement from work. Social security benefits may be provided in cash or kind for medical need, rehabilitation, domestic help during illness at home, legal aid, or funeral expenses. Social security may be provided by court order (e.g., to compensate accident victims), by employers (sometimes using insurance companies), by central or local government departments, or by semipublic or autonomous agencies.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=social; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=security (last access: 10 January 2016). 2 & 3. ILO – http://goo.gl/GmhwsJ (last access: 10 January 2016). 4. EncBrit – http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-security-government-program (last access: 10 January 2016).

SYN: social protection, social welfare. (context)

S: GDT – (last access: 10 January 2016)

CR: human rights, safety.