worker

One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor.

Noun

  1. One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor.
    • Near-synonym: employee
    • Fret not thy ſelfe becauſe of euill doers, neither bee thou enuious againſt the workers of iniquitie. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 37:1:
    • Writer Ta Chen, in a statistical study of industrial labor in China in 1933, recorded that 66.6 percent of the total number of workers in the four main industrial regions of Kwangtung were women. In Shun-te, 81.2...

    Synonyms: employee

    Coordinate Terms: boss manager employer[coinstantial]]>

  2. A nonreproductive social insect, such as ant, bee, termite, or wasp.

    1. (rare) A female ant, bee, termite or wasp.

  3. A thread performing one instance of a particular task within a program.
    • This FTP client spawns a separate worker for each file to be uploaded.

Origin

From Middle English werkere, worcher, wercher, equivalent to work + -er. Displaced the older term wright, from Old English wyrhta.

Forms

workers

Synonyms

proletarian worker

Antonyms

boss chief director employer leader manager idler scrounger

Hypernyms

person

Hyponyms

laborer employee husbandman craftsperson artisan operator physician musician clerk merchant athlete

Related

:Category:Occupations

Derived

aid worker anti-worker antiworker artworker autoworker bodyworker brain worker brassworker bronzeworker building worker cabinetworker camera worker camera-worker careworker caseworker clothworker coalworker construction worker copperworker counterworker co-worker coworker craftworker crowdworker