work

Noun

1. Employment.
   • 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? - c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William...
   • And in euery worke that he began[…]he did it with all his heart, and prospered. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Chronicles 31:21:

   Synonyms: work job occupation employment

   1. Labour, occupation, job.

   2. The place where one is employed.

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

   3. (by extension) One's employer.

      • I want to go to the reunion concert, but I'm not sure if my work will give me the time off.

   4. (dated) A factory; a works.

      • In trials of a Martin furnace in a steel work at Remscheiden, Germany, a lining of zirconia was found in good condition after […] - 1917, Platers' Guide, page 246:
2. Effort.
   • Holding a brick over your head is hard work. It takes a lot of work to write a dictionary.
   • Fifteen years of hard work went into the property's creation, which was undertaken by a legion of architects, designers, preservation and restoration experts, engineers, consultants, and artists. - 2026 May 5, Julie...

   1. Effort expended on a particular task.

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

      • 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. - 1920,...

   3. Something on which effort is expended.

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

   4. Something on which effort is expended.

      (euphemistic) Cosmetic surgery.

      • has had a lot of work done
      • Luckily, our eyes have grown accustomed after decades of Botox, fillers and extreme “work” going mainstream, so we don’t notice the weirdness and read it instead as maximum hotness. Thank you, progress! - 2025 May 20,...

   5. Something on which effort is expended.

      (prison slang) Prison gang violence.

      • putting in work

   6. (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.

   7. (physics, more generally) A measure of energy that is usefully extracted from a process: applied productively.

      • 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...
3. Product; the result of effort.
   • There's a lot of guesswork involved.

   1. (uncountable, often in combination) The result of a particular manner of production.

   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; a creative work.

      • It is a work of art.
      • the poetic works of Alexander Pope
      • To leaue no Rubs nor Botches in the Worke: - c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

      Synonyms: content creative work opus piece

   4. (countable) A fortification.

      • William the Conqueror fortified many castles, throwing up new ramparts, bastions and all manner of works.
4. The staging of events to appear as real.
5. Ore before it is dressed.
6. The equipment needed to inject a drug (syringes, needles, swabs etc.)
   • 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. - 1977 [1953], William S. Burroughs, edited by Allen Ginsberg, Junky, Penguin Books,...
   • 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...
7. The confident attitude of a drag queen.
   • All told, werk is about creativity, virtuosity, and a certain kind of mastery. - 2018 April 17, madison moore, Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 27:
   • If the voice coming out of my body is legibly male, it complicates my presence. The work starts to approach that mysterious state of werq. - 2022 January 25, Monique Jenkinson, Faux Queen: A Life in Drag, Bywater Books,...

Verb

1. To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers.
   • He's working in a bar.
   • The world’s favorite airport and Asian mega-hub, Singapore Changi, is eagerly working towards opening its new Jewel and Terminal 5. - 2018 December 6, Matt Falcus, “16 new airports and terminals we can’t wait to fly...

   1. Said of one's workplace (building), or one's department, or one's trade (sphere of business) [with in or at].

      • I work in a national park.
      • She works in the human resources department.
      • He mostly works in logging but sometimes works in carpentry too.

   2. Said of one's job title [with as].

      • 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. Said of a company or individual who employs [with for].

      • She works for Microsoft.
      • He works for the President.

   4. General use, said of either fellow employees or instruments or clients [with with].

      • I work closely with my Canadian counterparts.
      • You work with computers, right?
      • She works with the homeless people from the suburbs.

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

      • She works the night clubs.
      • The salesman works the Midwest.

   6. (transitive) To work or operate in, through, or by means of.

      • She's working the phones.
2. To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for.
   • 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.
3. To cause to operate, be productive, behave a certain way, or happen.
   • He worked the levers.

   1. To set into action.

   2. To exhaust, by working.

      • 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. - 1774, Edward Long, chapter 11, in The History of...

   3. To shape, form, or improve a material.

      • He used pliers to work the wire into shape.

   4. To provoke or excite; to influence.

      • The rock musician worked the crowd of young girls into a frenzy.
      • "Still, boozers can be worked sometimes. Most people can, if you encourage their kink. One old woman staked me for three months because she got such a kick out of scandalmongering the neighbours to me." - 1950, Norman...

   5. To use or manipulate to one’s advantage.

      • She knows how to work the system.

   6. (law) To cause to happen or to occur as a consequence.

      • 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. - 2022, Sawnee Electric Membership Corporation Bylaws,...

   7. To force to work.

      • He is working his servants hard.
4. To move or progress slowly or with difficulty; to proceed with effort.
   • to work into the earth
   • We worked back again and picked up our intended route, but we did not find the clear run I had hoped for. - 1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 79:

   1. (transitive) To move or progress slowly [with one's way].

      • He worked his way through the crowd.
      • The dye worked its way through.
5. To cause to move slowly or with difficulty.
   • 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, / […] - 1712 (date...
6. To embroider with thread.
7. To ferment.
8. To cause to ferment.
   • 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. - 1627...
9. To influence.
   • They worked on her to join the group.
10. To move in an agitated manner.
    • 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. - 1705, J[oseph] Addison,...
11. To behave in a certain way when handled
    • This dough does not work easily.
    • The soft metal works well.
12. To cause (someone) to feel (something); to do unto somebody (something, whether good or bad).
    • 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...
    • 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...

Wikipedia

Work