Etimology
From Middle English work, werk, from Old English weorc, from Proto-West Germanic *werk, from Proto-Germanic *werką, from Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom. Akin to Scots wark, Saterland Frisian Wierk, West Frisian wurk, Dutch werk, German Werk, German Low German Wark, Danish værk, Norwegian Bokmål verk, Norwegian Nynorsk verk, 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. Doublet of erg and ergon.
noun
work (countable and uncountable, plural works)
(uncountable) Employment.
(uncountable) Effort.
Product; the result of effort.
(uncountable, slang, professional wrestling) The staging of events to appear as real.
(mining) Ore before it is dressed.
(slang, plural only) The equipment needed to inject a drug (syringes, needles, swabs etc.)
Examples
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:occupation
My work involves a lot of travel.
Come on Neriſſa, I haue worke in hand / That you yet know not of; wee'll ſee our husbands / Before they thinke of vs?
And in euery worke that he began […] he did it with all his heart, and prospered.
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.
He hasn’t come home yet; he’s still at work.
I want to go to the reunion concert, but I'm not sure if my work will give me the time off.
In trials of a Martin furnace in a steel work at Remscheiden, Germany, a lining of zirconia was found in good condition after […]
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:work
Holding a brick over your head is hard work. It takes a lot of work to write a dictionary.
We know what we must do. Let's go to work.
We don't have much time. Let's get to work piling up those sandbags.
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.
There's lots of work waiting for me at the office.
Work is done against friction to drag a bag along the ground.
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.
There's a lot of guesswork involved.
We've got some paperwork to do before we can get started. The piece was decorated with intricate filigree work.
It is a work of art.
the poetic works of Alexander Pope
To leaue no Rubs nor Botches in the Worke:
The haſty multitude / Admiring enter'd, and the work ſome praiſe / And ſome the Architect:
“[…] 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? […] ”
William the Conqueror fortified many castles, throwing up new ramparts, bastions and all manner of works.
Tell me you're using clean works at least.
He gave me a sour look. “All right is it? Well, you shoot some then.” I cooked up a grain and got out my works ready to take the shot.
If you buy new works, clean them before using them. If you share works, clean them before you or the next person uses them. Blood may be in your works even if you can't see it. Clean your works either with rubbing alcohol , a household bleach solution , or boiling water.
While in San Francisco, where the AIDS crisis was particularly devastating, they saw numerous public awareness signs reading “Bleach Your Works” posted around the city, urging IV drug users to clean their needles with bleach to help staunch the spread of the disease.
Etimology
From Middle English werken and worchen, from Old English wyrċan and wircan (Mercian), from Proto-Germanic *wurkijaną (“to work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥ǵyéti (“to be working, to be at work”), from the root *werǵ-. 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).
verb
work (third-person singular simple present works, present participle working, simple past and past participle worked or (rare/archaic) wrought)
(intransitive) To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers.
(intransitive) To effect by gradual degrees;
(transitive) To effect by gradual degrees.
(transitive) To embroider with thread.
(transitive) To set into action.
(transitive) To cause to ferment.
(intransitive) To ferment.
(transitive) To exhaust, by working.
(transitive) To shape, form, or improve a material.
(transitive) To operate in a certain place, area, or speciality.
(transitive) To operate in or through; as, to work the phones.
(transitive) To provoke or excite; to influence.
(transitive) To use or manipulate to one’s advantage.
(transitive, law) To cause to happen or to occur as a consequence.
(transitive) To cause to work.
(intransitive) To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for.
(intransitive, figuratively) To influence.
(intransitive) To move in an agitated manner.
(intransitive) To behave in a certain way when handled
(ditransitive, poetic) To cause (someone) to feel (something); to do unto somebody (something, whether good or bad).
(obsolete, intransitive) To hurt; to ache.
(slang, transitive) To pull off; to wear, perform, etc. successfully or to advantage.
Examples
He's working in a bar.
I work in a national park.
She works in the human resources department.
He mostly works in logging but sometimes works in carpentry too.
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.
She works for Microsoft.
He works for the President.
I work closely with my Canadian counterparts.
You work with computers, right?
She works with the homeless people from the suburbs.
to work into the earth
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.
So the pure limpid Stream, when foul with Stains / Of ruſhing Torrents, and deſcending Rains, / Work’s it ſelf clear, and as it runs, refines; / ’Till by Degrees, the floating Mirrour ſhines, / […]
He worked the levers.
For Inanimate Things, you may trie the Force of Imagination, vpon Staying the Working of Beere, when the Barme is put in; Or vpon the Comming of Butter, or Cheeſe, after the Cherming, or the Rennet bee put in.
The mine was worked until the last scrap of ore had been extracted.
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.
He used pliers to work the wire into shape.
She works the night clubs.
The salesman works the Midwest.
The rock musician worked the crowd of young girls into a frenzy.
She knows how to work the system.
I cannot work a miracle.
Failure to hold the annual meeting, or to otherwise conduct the business of the annual meeting, shall not work a forfeiture or dissolution of the Cooperative.
He is working his servants hard.
The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing", "share the things you love with the world" 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.
They worked on her to join the group.
His fingers worked with tension.
A ship works in a heavy sea.
Here vex’d with Winter Storms Benacus raves, / Confus’d with working Sands and rolling Waves; / Rough and tumultuous like a Sea it lyes, / So loud the Tempeſt roars, ſo high the Billows riſe.
This dough does not work easily.
The soft metal works well.
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!”
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."
‘I wolde hit were so,’ seyde the Kynge, ‘but I may nat stonde, my hede worchys so—’
I would have never thought those pieces would go together, but she is working it like nobody's business.