work

• wuk (nonstandard, AAVE)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɜːk/
• (Broad Geordie) IPA^(key): [wɔːk]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wɝk/, [wɝk]

• Audio (RP)

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• Audio (GA)

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)k

From Middle English work, werk, from Old English worc, weorc, ġeweorc, from Proto-Germanic *werką (“work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom; akin to Scots wark, Saterland Frisian Wierk, West Frisian wurk, Dutch werk, German Werk, Danish værk, Swedish verk and yrke, Icelandic verk, Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌺𐌹 (gawaurki), Ancient Greek ἔργον (érgon, “work”) (from ϝέργον (wérgon)), Avestan 𐬬𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬰‎ (vərəz, “to work, to perform”), Armenian գործ (gorc, “work”), Albanian argëtoj (“entertain, reward, please”). English cognates include bulwark, boulevard, energy, erg, georgic, liturgy, metallurgy, organ, surgeon, wright.

work (countable and uncountable, plural works)

1. (heading, uncountable) Employment.
   1. Labour, occupation, job.

      My work involves a lot of travel.

      • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

        Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand / That you yet know not of.

      • Bible, 2 Chronicles xxxi. 21

        In every work that he began […] he did it with all his heart, and prospered.

      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 15, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

        Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.

   2. The place where one is employed.

      He hasn’t come home yet, he’s still at work.

   3. One's employer

      “I want to go to the R.E.M. reunion concert but I'm not sure if my work will let me off.”

2. (heading, uncountable) Effort.
   1. Effort expended on a particular task.

      Holding a brick over your head is hard work. It takes a lot of work to write a dictionary.

   2. Sustained human effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result.

      We know what we must do. Let's go to work.

   3. Something on which effort is expended.

      There's lots of work waiting for me at the office.

   4. (physics) A measure of energy expended in moving an object; most commonly, force times distance. No work is done if the object does not move.

      Work is done against friction to drag a bag along the ground.

   5. (physics, more generally) A measure of energy that is usefully extracted from a process.
      • 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist:

        Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning "vortex", and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.

3. Sustained effort to achieve a goal or result, especially overcoming obstacles.

   We don't have much time. Let's get to work piling up those sandbags.

   • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.

4. (heading) Product; the result of effort.
   1. (uncountable, often in combination) The result of a particular manner of production.

      There's a lot of guesswork involved.

   2. (uncountable, often in combination) Something produced using the specified material or tool.

      We've got some paperwork to do before we can get started. The piece was decorated with intricate filigree work.

   3. (countable) A literary, artistic, or intellectual production.

      It is a work of art.

      the poetic works of Alexander Pope

      • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

        to leave no rubs or blotches in the work

      • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

        The work some praise, / And some the architect.

      • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0088:

        “[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic? […] ”

   4. (countable) A fortification.

      William the Conqueror fortified many castles, throwing up new ramparts, bastions and all manner of works.

5. (uncountable, slang, professional wrestling) The staging of events to appear as real.
6. (mining) Ore before it is dressed.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Raymond to this entry?)

7. The equipment needed to inject a drug (syringes, needles, swabs etc.)

   Tell me you're using clean works at least.

• (employment): See also Thesaurus:occupation
• (productive activity): See also Thesaurus:work

• (product (combining form)): -ing

From Middle English werken and worchen, from Old English wyrċan and wircan (Mercian), from Proto-Germanic *wurkijaną (“to work”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to work”). Cognate with Old Frisian werka, wirka, Old Saxon wirkian, Low German warken, Dutch werken, Old High German wurken (German wirken, werken and werkeln), Old Norse yrkja and orka, (Swedish yrka and orka), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (waurkjan).

work (third-person singular simple present works, present participle working, simple past and past participle worked or (rare) wrought)

1. (intransitive) To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers.

   He’s working in a bar.

   1. Followed by in (or at, etc.) Said of one's workplace (building), or one's department, or one's trade (sphere of business).

      I work in a national park

      she works in the human resources department

      he mostly works in logging, but sometimes works in carpentry

   2. Followed by as. Said of one's job title
      • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 17, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

        This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.

      I work as a cleaner.

   3. Followed by for. Said of a company or individual who employs.

      she works for Microsoft

      he works for the president

   4. Followed by with. General use, said of either fellow employees or instruments or clients.

      I work closely with my Canadian counterparts

      you work with computers

      she works with the homeless people from the suburbs

2. (transitive) To effect by gradual degrees.

   he worked his way through the crowd

   the dye worked its way through

   using some tweezers, she worked the bee sting out of her hand

   • Addison

     So the pure, limpid stream, when foul with stains / Of rushing torrents and descending rains, / Works itself clear, and as it runs, refines, / Till by degrees the floating mirror shines.

3. (transitive) To embroider with thread.
4. (transitive) To set into action.

   He worked the levers.

5. (transitive) To cause to ferment.
6. (intransitive) To ferment.
   • Francis Bacon

     the working of beer when the barm is put in

7. (transitive) To exhaust, by working.

   The mine was worked until the last scrap of ore had been extracted.

   • 1774, Edward Long, The History of Jamaica. Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island, volume 2, chapter 11, 240:

     They were told of a ſilver mine, that had been worked by the Spaniards, ſomewhere in the Healthſhire Hills, in St. Catharine; but they were not able to diſcover it.

8. (transitive) To shape, form, or improve a material.

   He used pliers to work the wire into shape.

9. (transitive) To operate in a certain place, area, or speciality.

   she works the night clubs

   the salesman works the Midwest

   this artist works mostly in acrylics

10. (transitive) To operate in or through; as, to work the phones.
11. (transitive) To provoke or excite; to influence.

    The rock musician worked the crowd of young girls into a frenzy.

12. (transitive) To use or manipulate to one’s advantage.

    She knows how to work the system.

13. (transitive) To cause to happen or to occur as a consequence.

    I cannot work a miracle.

14. (transitive) To cause to work.

    He is working his servants hard.

15. (intransitive) To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for.
    • 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:

      The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […] and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained.

    he pointed at the car and asked, "Does it work"?;  he looked at the bottle of pain pills, wondering if they would work;  my plan didn’t work

16. (intransitive, figuratively) To influence.

    They worked on her to join the group.

17. (intransitive) To effect by gradual degrees; as, to work into the earth.
18. (intransitive) To move in an agitated manner.

    His fingers worked with tension.

    A ship works in a heavy sea.

    • Addison

      confused with working sands and rolling waves

19. (intransitive) To behave in a certain way when handled

    this dough does not work easily;  the soft metal works well

20. (transitive, with two objects, poetic) To cause (someone) to feel (something); to do unto somebody (something, whether good or bad).
    • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night:

      And indeed I blamed myself and sore repented me of having taken compassion on him and continued in this condition, suffering fatigue not to be described, till I said to myself, "I wrought him a weal and he requited me with my ill; by Allah, never more will I do any man a service so long as I live!"

    • 1909, Robert W. Service, “The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike”, in Ballads of a Cheechako:

      So sad it seemed, and its cheek-bones gleamed, and its fingers flicked the shore; / And it lapped and lay in a weary way, and its hands met to implore; / That I gently said: “Poor, restless dead, I would never work you woe; / Though the wrong you rue you can ne’er undo, I forgave you long ago.”

21. (obsolete, intransitive) To hurt; to ache.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XXI:

      ‘I wolde hit were so,’ seyde the Kynge, ‘but I may nat stonde, my hede worchys so—’

• "work" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 334.