The Collaborative Dictionary

Work \Work\ (w[^u]rk), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Worked (w[^u]rkt), or Wrought (r[add]t); p. pr. & vb. n. Working.] [AS. wyrcean (imp. worthe, wrohte, p. p. geworht, gewroht); akin to OFries. werka, wirka, OS. wirkian, D. werken, G. wirken, Icel. verka, yrkja, orka, Goth. wa['u]rkjan. [root]145. See Work, n.] [1913 Webster]

To exert one's self for a purpose; to put forth effort for the attainment of an object; to labor; to be engaged in the performance of a task, a duty, or the like. [1913 Webster] O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work, To match thy goodness? --Shak. [1913 Webster] Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you. --Ex. v.

[1913 Webster] Whether we work or play, or sleep or wake, Our life doth pass. --Sir J. Davies. [1913 Webster]

Hence, in a general sense, to operate; to act; to perform; as, a machine works well. [1913 Webster] We bend to that the working of the heart. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

Hence, figuratively, to be effective; to have effect or influence; to conduce. [1913 Webster] We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. --Rom. viii.

[1913 Webster] This so wrought upon the child, that afterwards he desired to be taught. --Locke. [1913 Webster] She marveled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him. --Hawthorne. [1913 Webster]

To carry on business; to be engaged or employed customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor; to toil. [1913 Webster] They that work in fine flax . . . shall be confounded. --Isa. xix.

[1913 Webster]

To be in a state of severe exertion, or as if in such a state; to be tossed or agitated; to move heavily; to strain; to labor; as, a ship works in a heavy sea. [1913 Webster] Confused with working sands and rolling waves. --Addison. [1913 Webster]

To make one's way slowly and with difficulty; to move or penetrate laboriously; to proceed with effort; -- with a following preposition, as down, out, into, up, through, and the like; as, scheme works out by degrees; to work into the earth. [1913 Webster] Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind. --Milton. [1913 Webster]

To ferment, as a liquid. [1913 Webster] The working of beer when the barm is put in. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]

To act or operate on the stomach and bowels, as a cathartic. [1913 Webster] Purges . . . work best, that is, cause the blood so to do, . . . in warm weather or in a warm room. --Grew. [1913 Webster] [1913 Webster] To work at, to be engaged in or upon; to be employed in. To work to windward (Naut.), to sail or ply against the wind; to tack to windward. --Mar. Dict. [1913 Webster]

Working \Work"ing\, a & n. from Work. [1913 Webster] The word must cousin be to the working. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] Working beam. See Beam, n.

Working class, the class of people who are engaged in manual labor, or are dependent upon it for support; laborers; operatives; -- chiefly used in the plural. Working day. See under Day, n. Working drawing, a drawing, as of the whole or part of a structure, machine, etc., made to a scale, and intended to be followed by the workmen. Working drawings are either general or detail drawings. Working house, a house where work is performed; a workhouse. Working point (Mach.), that part of a machine at which the effect required; the point where the useful work is done. [1913 Webster]

Word Net

working adj

1 actively engaged in paid work; "the working population"; "the ratio of working men to unemployed"; "a working mother"; "robots can be on the job day and night" [syn: working(a), on the job(p)]

2 adequate for practical use; especially sufficient in strength or numbers to accomplish something; "the party has a working majority in the House"; "a working knowledge of Spanish"

3 adopted as a temporary basis for further work; "a working draft"; "a working hypothesis" [syn: working(a)]

4 (of e.g. a machine) performing or capable of performing; "in running (or working) order"; "a functional set of brakes" [syn: running(a), operative, functional, working(a)]

5 serving to permit or facilitate further work or activity; "discussed the working draft of a peace treaty"; "they need working agreements with their neighbor states on interstate projects" n : a mine or quarry that is being or has been worked [syn: workings]

Moby Thesaurus

accomplishment, acetification, acidification, acidulation, act, acting, action, active, activism, activity, agency, alive, alkalization, answer, ascertainment, at it, at work, banausic, barmy, behavior, behavioral, breadwinning, businesslike, busy, carbonation, catalysis, chemicalization, clearing up, commercial, conduct, contour plowing, cracking, cultivating, cultivation, culture, decipherment, decoding, denouement, determination, diastatic, direction, disentanglement, doing, dressing, driving, drudging, dynamic, electrolysis, employed, employment, end, end result, engaged, enzymic, execution, exercise, explanation, exploitation, fallowing, ferment, fermentation, fermenting, finding, finding-out, full of business, function, functional, functioning, furrowing, going, going on, grinding, grubbing, handling, hard at it, hard at work, hardworking, harrowing, hoeing, hydrogenation, in exercise, in force, in hand, in harness, in operation, in play, in practice, in process, in the works, inaction, interpretation, isomerism, issue, laboring, leavening, listing, live, management, manipulation, materialistic, metamerism, metamerization, moneymaking, movements, nitration, occupation, occupied, on duty, on foot, on the fire, on the go, on the hop, on the job, on the jump, on the move, on the run, ongoing, operancy, operating, operation, operational, operations, operative, outcome, oxidation, oxidization, pegging, performance, performing, phosphatization, play, plodding, plowing, plugging, polymerism, polymerization, position isomerism, practical, practice, practicing, praxis, prosaic, pruning, raising, realistic, reason, reduction, resolution, resolving, responsibility, result, riddling, running, saturization, serving, slaving, slogging, solution, solving, sorting out, steering, straining, striving, struggling, sweating, swing, thinning, tied up, tilling, toiling, unraveling, unriddling, unscrambling, unspinning, untangling, untwisting, unweaving, upshot, using, utilitarian, utilization, weeding, work, workaday, workday, working-out, workings, yeasty

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)kɪŋ

Verb

working

1. present participle of work

   Leave him alone, he's working.

Translations

• Finnish: työskentely, työnteko
• Portuguese: trabalho
• Scots: wirkin

Noun

1. In the context of "usually plural": The action of the verb to work.

Adjective

working

1. That is or are functioning.

   a working ventilator

2. That suffices but requires additional work.

   a working copy of the script

3. In paid employment.

   working mothers

4. Of or relating to employment.

   the working week

5. Enough to allow one to use something.

   a working knowledge of computers

Synonyms

• (functioning): functioning, up (mainly used of computers)
• (that suffices but requires further work): draft, provisional, temporary
• (in paid employment): employed, in employment
• (of or relating to employment): work
• (enough to allow one to use something): basic

Antonyms

• (functioning): broken, broken-down, down (mainly used of computers)

Translations

Related terms

• work

Work may refer to:

• Mechanical work, the amount of energy transferred by a force
• Work (thermodynamics), the quantity of energy transferred from one system to another
• "Work", one's place of employment
• WORK (FM), an American FM radio station licensed to serve Barre, Vermont
• Wage labour, in which a worker sells their labour and the employer buys it
• Manual labour, physical work done by people
• Work of art, a creation, such as a song or a painting
• Work (project management), the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task
• Work (professional wrestling), a staged event
• Sex work, employment in the sex industry.
• Work (Kelly Rowland song), a single by Kelly Rowland
• Work (Jars of Clay song), a song by Jars of Clay
• Work (Jimmy Eat World song), a song by rock band Jimmy Eat World
• Work (1915 film), a 1915 silent film co-starring Edna Purviance
• Work Records (aka "WORK" or "The WORK Group"), a music label under Sony Records
• Work 1989-2002, a release by the electronic music duo Orbital
• Work (painting), by Ford Madox Brown
• Work: A Story of Experience, a novel by Louisa May Alcott
• Work: EU-OSHA, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

Working may refer to:

• Working (musical), a 1978 musical
• Working (TV series), a situation comedy
• Working (book), a book by Studs Terkel

See also

• Labour
• The Works (further disambiguation)
• Works (further disambiguation)
• Housework