Clues for the word "WORK"
We've had 73 crossword clues used for this word, and seen it 93 times in crosswords. It was last seen in LA Times crossword on November 29, 2025.
Definition of work
- n. - Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end; industrial activity; toil; employment; sometimes, specifically, physically labor.
- n. - The matter on which one is at work; that upon which one spends labor; material for working upon; subject of exertion; the thing occupying one; business; duty; as, to take up one's work; to drop one's work.
- n. - That which is produced as the result of labor; anything accomplished by exertion or toil; product; performance; fabric; manufacture; in a more general sense, act, deed, service, effect, result, achievement, feat.
- n. - Specifically: (a) That which is produced by mental labor; a composition; a book; as, a work, or the works, of Addison. (b) Flowers, figures, or the like, wrought with the needle; embroidery.
- n. - Structures in civil, military, or naval engineering, as docks, bridges, embankments, trenches, fortifications, and the like; also, the structures and grounds of a manufacturing establishment; as, iron works; locomotive works; gas works.
- n. - The moving parts of a mechanism; as, the works of a watch.
- n. - Manner of working; management; treatment; as, unskillful work spoiled the effect.
- n. - The causing of motion against a resisting force. The amount of work is proportioned to, and is measured by, the product of the force into the amount of motion along the direction of the force. See Conservation of energy, under Conservation, Unit of work, under Unit, also Foot pound, Horse power, Poundal, and Erg.
- n. - Ore before it is dressed.
- n. - Performance of moral duties; righteous conduct.
- n. - 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.
- n. - Hence, in a general sense, to operate; to act; to perform; as, a machine works well.
- n. - Hence, figuratively, to be effective; to have effect or influence; to conduce.
- n. - To carry on business; to be engaged or employed customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor; to toil.
- n. - 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.
- n. - 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.
- n. - To ferment, as a liquid.
- n. - To act or operate on the stomach and bowels, as a cathartic.
- v. t. - To labor or operate upon; to give exertion and effort to; to prepare for use, or to utilize, by labor.
- v. t. - To produce or form by labor; to bring forth by exertion or toil; to accomplish; to originate; to effect; as, to work wood or iron into a form desired, or into a utensil; to work cotton or wool into cloth.
- v. t. - To produce by slow degrees, or as if laboriously; to bring gradually into any state by action or motion.
- v. t. - To influence by acting upon; to prevail upon; to manage; to lead.
- v. t. - To form with a needle and thread or yarn; especially, to embroider; as, to work muslin.
- v. t. - To set in motion or action; to direct the action of; to keep at work; to govern; to manage; as, to work a machine.
- v. t. - To cause to ferment, as liquor.
Referring Clues
- Have an effect
- Function
- Lead-in for -aholic
- Labor
- Have an effect (on)
- Task
- Succeed
- Slacker's bane
- Operate properly
- Get the job done
- Productive activity
- Nine-to-five destination
- Toil
- Job
- "The refuge of people who have nothing better to do," according to Oscar Wilde
- #16
- Nine-to-five routine
- Succeed, with "out"
- Put in one's eight hours
- Nine-to-five routine, and hint to this puzzle's theme
- Employment
- See 61-Across
- Cry made while cracking a whip, maybe
- A bummer for bums
- Need after being canned
- Come out all right
- Drudgery
- Do the job
- Elbow grease
- Elbow grease
- The end of art?
- End of a Ross Thatcher quote
- *Function as promised
- Heavy exertion
- Run
- Earn a living
- Do the trick
- Something cited in a citation
- Get down to business
- Prove effective
- Opposite of play
- "all useful ___ stopped forever" (peter, on the effect of 20-across)
- Function properly
- Do a shift
- Have a job
- Be employed
- "Down Under" Men at ___
- Who broke Oddjob?
- Play? Certainly not!
- Occupation
- Argument about final bank job
- See 5
- Labour
- Play, for example, or not!
- Join the rat race
- Labour's dispute about tip from Kinnock
- 2016 #1 hit for Rihanna, which can precede both parts of 17-, 25-, 35-, 49- and 59-Across
- With 28-Across, tireless sort
- Paid employment
- See 13
- But it could be one to play
- Business
- Have the desired effect
- ___ load
- See 67-Across
- Ending for "right to" or "put to"
- Forms to process
- 2016 Rihanna hit
- 9-to-5 activity
- It equals force times displacement
- Tasks
- Can be creative; novel, perhaps
- Stop ___ order: bad news on a construction site
Last Seen In
- LA Times - November 29, 2025
- Evening Standard Quick - October 06, 2025
- LA Times - February 07, 2025
- Evening Standard Cryptic - December 31, 2024
- Mirror Mini - August 24, 2024
- Penny Dell Daily - April 08, 2024
- Mirror Mini - March 21, 2024
- Penny Dell Daily - January 11, 2024
- Mirror Mini - August 24, 2023
- Evening Standard Cryptic - July 10, 2023
- USA Today - April 02, 2023
- Mirror Mini - March 21, 2023
- Family Time - January 22, 2023
- New York Times - October 06, 2022
- Mirror Mini - August 24, 2022
- Chronicle of Higher Education - October 27, 2017
- LA Times - July 31, 2017
- USA Today - June 07, 2017
- Guardian Cryptic - March 16, 2017
- Netword - January 30, 2017
- Rock n Roll Crossword - January 15, 2017
- Pat Sajack's Code Letter - September 17, 2016
- Guardian Cryptic - May 27, 2016
- King Syndicate - Eugene Sheffer - March 17, 2016
- Guardian Cryptic - March 16, 2016
- Guardian Quick - February 03, 2016
- USA Today - August 20, 2015
- King Syndicate - Eugene Sheffer - August 20, 2015
- Family Time - February 23, 2015
- Washington Post - January 30, 2015
- And in 63 more crossword puzzles...