different between work vs interest

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

Alternative forms

• enterest (obsolete)
• interess (obsolete)
• intherest (pronunciation spelling, suggesting an Irish accent)

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French interesse and interest (French intérêt), from Medieval Latin interesse, from Latin interesse.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??nt???st/, /??nt??st/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??nt???st/, /??nt??st/, /??nt???st/, /??nt??st/, /??nt??st/
• Hyphenation: in?ter?est

Noun

interest (usually uncountable, plural interests)

1. (uncountable, finance) The price paid for obtaining, or price received for providing, money or goods in a credit transaction, calculated as a fraction of the amount or value of what was borrowed. [from earlier 16th c.]

2. (uncountable, finance) Any excess over and above an exact equivalent
   • 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act IV, sc 3:

     You shall have your desires with interest

3. (uncountable) A great attention and concern from someone or something; intellectual curiosity. [from later 18th c.]
4. (uncountable) Attention that is given to or received from someone or something.
5. (countable) An involvement, claim, right, share, stake in or link with a financial, business, or other undertaking or endeavor.

6. (countable) Something or someone one is interested in.

7. (uncountable) Condition or quality of exciting concern or being of importance
   • 1809, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend, Essay VIII:

     The conscience, indeed, is already violated when to moral good or evil we oppose things possessing no moral interest.

8. (obsolete, rare) Injury, or compensation for injury; damages.
9. (usually in the plural) The persons interested in any particular business or measure, taken collectively.

Synonyms

• (fraction of the amount or value of what was borrowed): cost of money, oker

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

interest (third-person singular simple present interests, present participle interesting, simple past and past participle interested)

1. To engage the attention of; to awaken interest in; to excite emotion or passion in, in behalf of a person or thing.

   It might interest you to learn that others have already tried that approach.

   Action films don't really interest me.

2. (obsolete, often impersonal) To be concerned with or engaged in; to affect; to concern; to excite.
   • 1633, John Ford, Perkin Warbeck

     Or rather, gracious sir, / Create me to this glory, since my cause / Doth interest this fair quarrel.

3. (obsolete) To cause or permit to share.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     The mystical communion of all faithful men is such as maketh every one to be interested in those precious blessings which any one of them receiveth at God's hands.

Antonyms

• bore
• disinterest

Derived terms

• interested
• interesting

Translations

Further reading

• "interest" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 171.

Anagrams

• Steinert, ernstite, inertest, insetter, interset, sternite, tres-tine, trientes

Dutch

Alternative forms

• interesse (obsolete)
• intrest

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) Doublet of interesse.

Pronunciation

Noun

interest m (plural interesten, diminutive interestje n)

1. (finance) interest

Synonyms

• rente

Latin

Verb

interest

1. third-person singular present active indicative of intersum

References

• interest in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• interest in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• interest in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Middle French

Noun

interest m (plural interests)

1. interest (great attention and concern from someone or something)