See Also: out of work(dictionary)
work(1)(dictionary)
work(2)(dictionary)
by-work(dictionary)
Work(medicine)
Work(money)
work-shy(dictionary)
tut-work(medicine)
work of art(dictionary)
work(encyclopedia)

work(1) (iou)



work noun.
[Old English weorc, werc, worc, wurc, = Old Frisian, Old Saxon werk, Old High German werah, werc (Dutch werk, German Werk), Old Norse verk, from Germanic, from Indo-European base also of Greek ergon.]
I. Act, action, process.
A thing done; an act, a deed, a proceeding; spec. one involving toil or strenuous effort. arch. & literary in gen. sense. OE.
R. Boyle Another Work of Charity upon my hands..to reform an extravagant Husband. R. Whately The works performed by Jesus..were beyond the unassisted powers of man.
b. Theology, in pl. Good or moral acts or deeds considered in relation to justification (usu. as opp. to faith or grace). LME.
Q. Bell Concerned with works rather than with faith.
c. A criminal act or activity. Cf. JOB noun1 1b. Criminals' slang. E19.
Doings, deeds collect. sing.; conduct. OE-E17.
Purposive action involving effort or exertion, esp. as a means of making one's living; (one's) regular occupation or employment. Also, labour, toil; spec. (a) the operation of making or repairing something, (in pl.) architectural or engineering operations; (b) (the cost of) the labour involved in making something, as contrasted with the material used; (c) investigation, study. OE.
needlework, woodwork, etc. building works, clerk of works, roadworks, etc.
J. Buchan It was hard work rowing, for the wind was against him. D. Bloodworth A paleo-zoologist..doing some work on prehistoric monkeys. C. Warwick Her work as a freelance political journalist. Reader's Digest People know I'm a writer, but they don't really regard what I do as work.
b. Chiefly Sport. Practice, training; exertion or movement proper to a particular sport etc. M19.
A. C. H. Smith He's never been tried on a racecourse before, but I've ridden him out in work.
Orig., trouble, affliction. Later (arch.), (a) disturbance, (a) fuss. OE.
C. M. Yonge There's no harm done yet, so don't make such a work.
A thing to be done or to do; what a person (or thing) has to do; a task, a function. OE.
Shakespeare 1 Henry IV Fie upon this quiet life! I want work. A. Trollope To fight the devil was her workwas the appointed work of every living soul. J. C. Swannell Mrs Jessie Coulson took over the work.
Action of a particular (freq. specified) kind, production of a characteristic effect; functioning, operation. LME.
R. Sibbes The work of God's spirit in his children, is like fire. Byron Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done Their work on them by turns.
b. Cricket. = BREAK noun1 9. M19.
Math. The process of or an operation in calculation; a process of calculation written out in full. Cf. WORKING noun 7. M16-M19.
Physics & Mechanics. The operation of a force in producing movement or other physical change, esp. as a definitely measurable quantity. M19.
II. Product, result.
gen. A thing, structure, or result produced by the operation, action, or labour of or of a person or other agent; things made collectively, creation, handiwork. Also, something achieved or accomplished, the doing of an agent. OE.
Dryden The waxen Work of lab'ring Bees. Ld Monboddo Man in his natural state is the work of God. K. P. Oakley Stones..faceted by sandstorms..are occasionally mistaken for the work of man.
An architectural or engineering structure, as a house, bridge, pier, etc.; an edifice. Now Hist. & dial. exc. as in senses b, c below. OE.
Milton The work some praise And some the Architect.
b. sing. & in pl. Military. A fortified building or other defensive structure, a fortification; any of the sides, walls, etc., of such a structure. Freq. as 2nd elem. of comb. OE.
earthwork, field-work, hornwork, outwork, etc.
c. An excavated space or structure; spec. (a) a mine; (b) local a kind of trench in draining. Now rare or obsolete. L15.
A literary or musical composition. Later also, a painting, sculpture, or other piece of fine art; collect. (sing. & in pl.) the literary, musical, or artistic output of a person etc. ME.
V. Woolf The works of Byron in one volume. R. G. Collingwood The artist may take his audience's limitations into account when composing his work. K. Clark Haydn's earlier works, particularly those for small orchestras and strings. American Speech It..cannot be recommended as a reference work.
a. (A style of) workmanship, esp. ornamental workmanship. Now chiefly collect. sing., things or structures, esp. of an ornamental nature, (being) made from particular materials or with specified tools. LME.
bead-work, chain-work, glass work, ironwork, lacquer-work, poker-work, shell-work, silver-work, etc.
Evelyn A rare clock of German worke.
b. A thing consisting of or (being) made from a textile fabric; the fabric itself, esp. while being worked on; a piece of knitting, needlework, embroidery, etc. LME.
Berlin work, drawn-work, laid-work, shadow work, etc.
Dickens The work she had knitted, lay beside her. W. Besant A girl, with work on her lap, sewing.
c. An ornamental pattern or figure. LME-L17.
Orig., a set of parts forming a machine or mechanism. Now spec. (in pl.), the internal working parts of a machine; esp. the mechanism of a clock or watch. E17.
b. In pl. A drug addict's equipment for taking drugs. US slang. M20.
III.
sing. & in pl. (now usu. treated as sing.). A place or premises where industrial activity, esp. manufacture, is carried on. L16.
works bus, works canteen, works manager, works outing, works supervisor, etc.
Phrases: a demon for work: see DEMON noun1 6. a good day's work a large or satisfying amount of work done in a day; a day spent conscientiously or productively working. all in a day's work, all in the day's work: see DAY noun. a nasty bit of work, a nasty piece of work: see NASTY adjective. at work in action; engaged in work, esp. one's regular employment. a work of time a proceeding which takes a long time. clerk of the works, clerk of works: see CLERK noun. Covenant of Works: see COVENANT noun. cut out work for a person prepare work to be done by a person, give a person something to do. dead work: see DEAD adjective etc. dirty work, dirty work at the crossroads: see DIRTY adjective. give a person the works (a) colloq. give or tell a person everything; (b) colloq. treat a person harshly; (c) slang kill a person. good works: see GOOD adjective. go to work (a) proceed to some action (expressed or implied), commence operations; (b) set off for or travel to one's place of employment. have one's work cut out have as much to do as one can manage, esp. in the time available; be faced with a hard task. in-and-out work: see IN AND OUT adjectival phr. in the works being planned, worked on, or produced. maid of all work: see MAID noun. make a work create or cause confusion, (a) fuss, or (a) disturbance. make light work of: see LIGHT adjective1. make short work of: see SHORT adjective. nice work: see NICE adjective. out of work (so as to be) without work or employment. out-of-work attrib. adjective & noun (a person who is) unemployed. piece of work: see PIECE noun. public works: see PUBLIC adjective & noun. rid-work: see RID noun 2. ride work: see RIDE verb. rough work: see ROUGH adjective. rustic work: see RUSTIC adjective 2. sale of work: see SALE noun. servile work: see SERVILE adjective 1. set to work (cause to) begin to work. shoot the works: see SHOOT verb. social work: see SOCIAL adjective. spanner in the works: see SPANNER noun1 2. the work of a proceeding occupying (a stated length of time). to work: see TO preposition. upper works: see UPPER adjective. VIRTUAL work. warm work: see WARM adjective. white work: see WHITE adjective. work in progress work undertaken but not yet completed; spec. in Commerce (usu. with hyphens), the total cost of materials, labour, etc. incurred up to a given point in a process of production, manufacture, etc. work of art: see ART noun1.
Comb.: work-bag, work-basket: for storing implements and materials for needlework; workbench a bench at which mechanical or practical work, esp. carpentry, is done; workbook (a) in a business etc., a book containing a record of daily duties, work (to be) done, etc.; (b) (chiefly N. Amer.) a book of practical instruction, esp. one which sets out exercises, problems, etc., to be worked through; (c) Computing a single file containing several different types of related information as separate worksheets; workbox a box containing tools, materials for sewing, etc.; work camp (orig. US) (a) a camp at which community work is done, esp. by young volunteers; (b) = labour camp s.v. LABOUR noun; work card (a) a card issued by an employer and serving as a kind of identity document; (b) a card setting out questions, problems, etc., for a pupil to work through; workday noun & adjective (a) noun a day on which work is ordinarily done, a weekday; (b) adjective = WORKADAY adjective. work ethic the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward; see also Protestant work ethic s.v. PROTESTANT adjective; work experience (the provision of) experience of employment, esp. for school-leavers; workfellow = workmate below; work-flow (the organization of) the sequence of industrial, administrative, etc., processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion; workfolk workpeople, esp. farm labourers; workforce the (number of) people engaged in or available for work, esp. in a particular firm or industry; work function Physics (a) the minimum quantity of energy which is required to remove an electron to infinity from the surface of a given solid (usu. a metal) (symbol ¦Õ); (b) a thermodynamic property of a system, being its internal energy minus the product of its temperature and entropy (symbol A); work furlough US = work release below; work group Sociology: of people in a workplace who normally work together; work-hand an assistant employed by another person, esp. = HAND noun 12b; work-harden verb (Metallurgy) (a) verb trans. toughen (a metal) by cold-working; (b) verb intrans. (of a metal) become tough as a result of cold-working; workhead (a) the part of a lathe which carries the mandrel; (b) an interchangeable working attachment for a powered implement or tool; workhorse (a) a horse used for work on a farm; (b) fig. a machine, person, etc., that dependably performs arduous work; work-jail a penal workhouse; workload the amount of work to be done by a person or persons; work-master (now rare or obsolete) (a) a master workman, an overseer or employer of workmen; (b) fig. a producer or creator of a thing, esp. God as creator and ruler; workmate a person engaged in the same work as another, esp. a fellow labourer; work measurement the application of ergonomic techniques in establishing the time required for performing a particular task; work-minded adjective eager to work, esp. hard; work-mistress (now rare) a woman who controls or superintends work, fig. nature personified; workmonger Theology (derog., now rare or obsolete) a person who expects to be justified by works; workpeople people in paid employment, esp. in manual or industrial labour; work permit an official document giving a foreigner permission to take a job in a country; workpiece a thing (being) worked on with a machine or tool; workplace a or the place at which a person works, as an office, factory, etc.; work point in Communist China, a unit used in calculating wages due, based on the quality and quantity of work done; work rate a rate at which work is done, the amount of work done in a period of time; spec. the amount of fatiguing running and chasing a football player does in a game; work release US leave of absence from prison by day enabling a person to continue in normal employment; workroom a room for working in, esp. one equipped for a particular kind of work; works committee, works council: of workers or their representatives, formed for joint discussions with employers; workshadow verb trans. & intrans. accompany (a person at work) for a short period in order to gain understanding of or receive training in a job; (chiefly as workshadowing verbal noun); work-sharing short-time working by all employees in an overmanned industry, as an alternative to redundancies; worksheet (a) = workbook (a) above; (b) a paper on which are recorded notes, calculations, etc., relating to work in progress; (c) a paper listing exercises, problems, etc., for a student to work through; work-shy adjective disinclined to work; work-space (a) Computing = working storage s.v. WORKING noun; (b) space for people to work in; workstation (a) a location on an assembly line at which an operation in a manufacturing process is carried out; (b) (a desk with) a computer or computer terminal and keyboard; a powerful desktop computer; work study the assessment of methods of working with a view to maximizing output and efficiency; work surface = worktop below; work table: for supporting working materials, tools, etc., esp. one used for sewing or needlework; work-team a team of animals (esp. horses or oxen) or people who work together; worktop a flat surface for working on, esp. in a kitchen; workweek N. Amer. the total number of hours or days worked in a week.
workwise adverb as far as work is concerned M20.