 4 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
working
adjective
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"
noun: a mine or quarry that is being or has been worked [syn: {workings}]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Work \Work\ (w[^u]rk), verb (used without an object) [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}, noun]
1. 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.
O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,
To match thy goodness? --Shak.
Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw
be given you. --Ex. v. 18.
Whether we work or play, or sleep or wake,
Our life doth pass. --Sir J.
Davies.
2. Hence, in a general sense, to operate; to act; to perform;
as, a machine works well.
We bend to that the working of the heart. --Shak.
3. Hence, figuratively, to be effective; to have effect or
influence; to conduce.
We know that all things work together for good to
them that love God. --Rom. viii.
28.
This so wrought upon the child, that afterwards he
desired to be taught. --Locke.
She marveled how she could ever have been wrought
upon to marry him. --Hawthorne.
4. To carry on business; to be engaged or employed
customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor;
to toil.
They that work in fine flax . . . shall be
confounded. --Isa. xix. 9.
5. 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.
Confused with working sands and rolling waves.
--Addison.
6. 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.
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind. --Milton.
7. To ferment, as a liquid.
The working of beer when the barm is put in.
--Bacon.
8. To act or operate on the stomach and bowels, as a
cathartic.
Purges . . . work best, that is, cause the blood so
to do, . . . in warm weather or in a warm room.
--Grew.
{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.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Working \Work"ing\,
a & n. from {Work}.
The word must cousin be to the working. --Chaucer.
{Working beam}. See {Beam}, noun 10.
{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}, noun
{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.
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
188 Moby Thesaurus words for "working":
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
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