work
Meanings
- Employment.
- Labour, occupation, job.
- The place where one is employed.
- One's employer.
- A factory; a works.
- Effort.
- Effort expended on a particular task.
- Sustained effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result.
- Something on which effort is expended.
- Cosmetic surgery.
- Prison gang violence.
- A measure of energy expended in moving an object; most commonly, force times distance. No work is done if the object does not move.
- To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers.
- Said of one's workplace (building), or one's department, or one's trade (sphere of business) [with in or at].
- Said of one's job title [with as].
- Said of a company or individual who employs [with for].
- General use, said of either fellow employees or instruments or clients [with with].
- To work or operate in a certain place, area, or speciality.
- To work or operate in, through, or by means of.
- To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for.
- To cause to operate, be productive, behave a certain way, or happen.
- To set into action.
- To exhaust, by working.
- To shape, form, or improve a material.
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom Proto-Germanic *werką Proto-West Germanic *werk Old English weorc Middle English werk English work From Middle English work, werk, from Old English weorc, from Proto-West Germanic *werk, from Proto-Germanic *werką (“work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom (“work”), from Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to make”). Cognates Cognate with Scots wark (“work”), North Frisian werk (“work”), Saterland Frisian Wierk (“work”), West Frisian wurk (“work”), Dutch werk (“work”), German Werk (“work”), German Low German Wark (“work”), Luxembourgish Wierk (“work”), Danish værk (“work”), Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish verk (“work”); also Breton ober (“to do, make”), Cornish gul, gwul (“to do, make”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic fearg (“anger”), Manx ferg (“anger”), Pictish ᚒᚏᚏᚐᚉᚈ (urract, “he made”), Welsh gwneud, neud (“to do, make”), Greek έργο (érgo, “work”), Albanian argëtim (“entertainment; fun, pleasure”), argëtoj (“to amuse, entertain”), Lithuanian váržas (“fish snaring net”), Macedonian врша (vrša, “fish-trap”), Polish wiersza (“fish-trap”), Russian and Ukrainian ве́рша (vérša, “fish-trap”), Serbo-Croatian вр̑ша, vȓša (“fish-trap”), Slovak and Slovene vrša (“fish-trap”), Aghwan 𐔱𐕒𐕙𐔵 (borz, “labour, work”), Armenian գործ (gorc, “work”), Northern Kurdish werz (“bed, field, patch; season”), Avestan 𐬬𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬰 (vər^əz, “to do, work”), Persian ورز (varz, “art, craft, trade”), ورزه (varze, “art, profession, trade”), ورزیدن (varzidan, “to exercise; to train; to work”), Tocharian B warkṣäl (“energy, power, strength”). English cognates include bulwark, boulevard, energy, erg, georgic, liturgy, metallurgy, organ, surgeon, wright. Doublet of erg and ergon.