different between work vs field

English

Alternative forms

• werk, werke, worke (obsolete)
• wuk (nonstandard, AAVE)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??k/
• (Broad Geordie) IPA^(key): [w??k]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w?k/, [w?k]
• (NYC) IPA^(key): /w??k/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k

Etymology 1

From Middle English work, werk, from Old English worc, weorc, ?eweorc, from Proto-Germanic *werk? (“work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wér?om; akin to Scots wark, Saterland Frisian Wierk, West Frisian wurk, Dutch werk, German Werk, German Low German Wark, Danish værk, Norwegian Bokmål verk, Norwegian Nynorsk verk, Swedish verk and yrke, Icelandic verk, Gothic ???????????????????????????????? (gawaurki), Ancient Greek ????? (érgon, “work”) (from ?????? (wérgon)), Avestan ????????????????????? (v?r^?z, “to work, to perform”), Armenian ???? (gorc, “work”), Albanian argëtoj (“entertain, reward, please”). English cognates include bulwark, boulevard, energy, erg, georgic, liturgy, metallurgy, organ, surgeon, wright. Doublet of ergon.

Noun

work (countable and uncountable, plural works)

1. (heading, uncountable) Employment.
   1. Labour, occupation, job.

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:occupation
   2. The place where one is employed.

   3. (by extension) One's employer.

   4. (dated) A factory; a works.
      • 1917, Platers' Guide (page 246)

        In trials of a Martin furnace in a steel work at Remscheiden, Germany, a lining of zirconia was found in good condition after […]

2. (heading, uncountable) Effort.
   1. Effort expended on a particular task.

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:work

   2. Sustained human effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result.

      • The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.

   3. Something on which effort is expended.

   4. (physics) A measure of energy expended in moving an object; most commonly, force times distance. No work is done if the object does not move.

   5. (physics, more generally) A measure of energy that is usefully extracted from a process.
3. (heading) Product; the result of effort.
   1. (uncountable, often in combination) The result of a particular manner of production.

   2. (uncountable, often in combination) Something produced using the specified material or tool.

   3. (countable) A literary, artistic, or intellectual production.
      • “[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic? […] ”

   4. (countable) A fortification.

4. (uncountable, slang, professional wrestling) The staging of events to appear as real.
5. (mining) Ore before it is dressed.
6. (slang, plural only) The equipment needed to inject a drug (syringes, needles, swabs etc.)

Derived terms

Descendants

• Pijin: waka

Translations

See also

• (product (combining form)): -ing

Etymology 2

From Middle English werken and worchen, from Old English wyr?an and wircan (Mercian), from Proto-Germanic *wurkijan? (“to work”), from Proto-Indo-European *wer?- (“to work”). Cognate with Old Frisian werka, wirka, Old Saxon wirkian, Low German warken, Dutch werken, Old High German wurken (German wirken, werken and werkeln), Old Norse yrkja and orka, (Swedish yrka and orka), Gothic ???????????????????????????????? (waurkjan).

Verb

work (third-person singular simple present works, present participle working, simple past and past participle worked or (rare/archaic) wrought)

1. (intransitive) To do a specific task by employing physical or mental powers.
   1. Followed by in (or at, etc.) Said of one's workplace (building), or one's department, or one's trade (sphere of business).

   2. Followed by as. Said of one's job title

   3. Followed by for. Said of a company or individual who employs.

   4. Followed by with. General use, said of either fellow employees or instruments or clients.

2. (transitive) To effect by gradual degrees.
   • 1712, Joseph Addison, Cato, a Tragedy

     So the pure, limpid stream, when foul with stains / Of rushing torrents and descending rains, / Works itself clear, and as it runs, refines, / Till by degrees the floating mirror shines.

3. (transitive) To embroider with thread.
4. (transitive) To set into action.

5. (transitive) To cause to ferment.
6. (intransitive) To ferment.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Essay on Natural History

     the working of beer when the barm is put in

7. (transitive) To exhaust, by working.
   • 1774, Edward Long, The History of Jamaica. Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island, volume 2, chapter 11, 240:

     They were told of a ?ilver mine, that had been worked by the Spaniards, ?omewhere in the Health?hire Hills, in St. Catharine; but they were not able to di?cover it.

8. (transitive) To shape, form, or improve a material.

9. (transitive) To operate in a certain place, area, or speciality.

10. (transitive) To operate in or through; as, to work the phones.
11. (transitive) To provoke or excite; to influence.

12. (transitive) To use or manipulate to one’s advantage.

13. (transitive) To cause to happen or to occur as a consequence.

14. (transitive) To cause to work.

15. (intransitive) To function correctly; to act as intended; to achieve the goal designed for.

16. (intransitive, figuratively) To influence.

17. (intransitive) To effect by gradual degrees; as, to work into the earth.
18. (intransitive) To move in an agitated manner.

    A ship works in a heavy sea.

    • 1705, Joseph Addison, Remarks on several parts of Italy, &c., in the years 1701, 1702, 1703

      confused with working sands and rolling waves

19. (intransitive) To behave in a certain way when handled

20. (ditransitive, poetic) To cause (someone) to feel (something); to do unto somebody (something, whether good or bad).
    • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night:

      And indeed I blamed myself and sore repented me of having taken compassion on him and continued in this condition, suffering fatigue not to be described, till I said to myself, "I wrought him a weal and he requited me with my ill; by Allah, never more will I do any man a service so long as I live!"
21. (obsolete, intransitive) To hurt; to ache.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XXI:

      ‘I wolde hit were so,’ seyde the Kynge, ‘but I may nat stonde, my hede worchys so—’

Conjugation

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• "work" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 334.

References

English

Etymology

From Middle English field, feeld, feld, from Old English feld (“field; open or cultivated land, plain; battlefield”), from Proto-West Germanic *felþu, from Proto-Germanic *felþuz, *felþaz, *felþ? (“field”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh?- (“field, plain”) or *pleth?- (“flat”) (with schwebeablaut).

Cognate with Scots feld, feild (“field”), North Frisian fjild (“field”), West Frisian fjild (“field”), Dutch veld (“field”), German Feld (“field”), Swedish fält (“field”). Related also to Old English folde (“earth, land, territory”), Old English folm (“palm of the hand”). More at fold.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fi?ld/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /fild/
• Rhymes: -i?ld

Noun

field (plural fields)

2. A land area free of woodland, cities, and towns; open country.
   1. (usually in the plural) The open country near or belonging to a town or city.
      1. An airfield, airport or air base; especially, one with unpaved runways.
4. A wide, open space that is usually used to grow crops or to hold farm animals.
   2. (geology) A region containing a particular mineral.

5. A place where competitive matches are carried out.
   2. A place where a battle is fought; a battlefield.
   4. An area reserved for playing a game or race with one’s physical force.
      1. (baseball, obsolete) The team in a match that throws the ball and tries to catch it when it is hit by the other team (the bat).
      2. (baseball) The outfield.
   5. A place where competitive matches are carried out with figures, playing field, in a board game or in a computer game.
   6. A competitive situation, circumstances in which one faces conflicting moves of rivals.
   7. (metonymically) All of the competitors in any outdoor contest or trial, or all except the favourites in the betting.

6. Any of various figurative meanings, often dead metaphors.
   2. (physics) A physical phenomenon (such as force, potential or fluid velocity) that pervades a region; a mathematical model of such a phenomenon that associates each point and time with a scalar, vector or tensor quantity.

   3. Any of certain structures serving cognition.
      1. The extent of a given perception.

      2. A realm of practical, direct or natural operation, contrasted with an office, classroom, or laboratory.

      4. A domain of study, knowledge or practice.

      5. An unrestricted or favourable opportunity for action, operation, or achievement.
      7. (algebra) A commutative ring satisfying the field axioms.

   4. A physical or virtual location for the input of information in the form of symbols.
      2. (heraldry) The background of the shield.
      4. (vexillology) The background of the flag.
      5. The part of a coin left unoccupied by the main device.
      6. A concrete section in a form which is supposed to be filled with data.
         • PHP 5 Forms Required Fields at W3Schools

           From the validation rules table on the previous page, we see that the "Name", "E-mail", and "Gender" fields are required. These fields cannot be empty and must be filled out in the HTML form.

      7. A component of a database in which a single unit of information is stored.
         2. (computing, object-oriented programming) An area of memory or storage reserved for a particular value, subject to virtual access controls.
   5. (electronics, film, animation) Part (usually one half) of a frame in an interlaced signal

Synonyms

• (course of study or domain of knowledge): area, domain, sphere, realm
• (area reserved for playing a game): course (for golf), court (for racquet sports), ground, pitch (for soccer, rugby, cricket)
• (location for the input of information): input field, box

Hypernyms

• (algebra): Euclidean domain ? principal ideal domain ? unique factorization domain, Noetherian domain ? integral domain ? commutative ring;   simple ring

Hyponyms

• (algebra): ordered field, Pythagorean field, residue field, extension field

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ????? (f?rudo)

Translations

Usage notes

In the mathematical sense, some languages, such as French, use a term that literally means "body". This denotes a division ring or skew field, not necessarily commutative. If it is clear from context that the quaternions and similar division rings are irrelevant, or that all division rings being considered are finite and therefore fields, this difference is ignored.

Verb

field (third-person singular simple present fields, present participle fielding, simple past and past participle fielded)

1. (transitive, sports) To intercept or catch (a ball) and play it.
2. (intransitive, baseball, softball, cricket, and other batting sports) To be the team catching and throwing the ball, as opposed to hitting it.

   The blue team are fielding first, while the reds are batting.

3. (transitive, sports) To place (a team, its players, etc.) in a game.

   The away team fielded two new players and the second-choice goalkeeper.

4. (transitive) To answer; to address.

   She will field questions immediately after her presentation.

5. (transitive) To defeat.

6. (transitive) To execute research (in the field).

7. (transitive, military) To deploy in the field.

   to field a new land-mine detector

Synonyms

• (intercept or catch (a ball) and play it):
• (place a team in (a game)):
• (answer, address): address, answer, deal with, respond to

Antonyms

• (be the team throwing and catching the ball): bat

Translations

See also

• Field in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “field”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• Fidel, felid, filed, flied

Middle English

Noun

field

1. Alternative form of feeld