different between work vs lever

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

Pronunciation

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /?li?.v?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?li?.v?/,

  Hyphenation: lever

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?l?.v?/, /?li?.v?/

  Hyphenation: le?ver, Hyphenation: lev?er

• Rhymes: -?v?(?), -i?v?(?)
• Homophones: leaver, Lever (for the pronunciation /?li?v?(?)/)

Etymology 1

From Middle English lever, levore, levour, from Old French leveor, leveur (“a lifter, lever (also Old French and French levier)”), from Latin lev?tor (“a lifter”), from lev? (“to raise”); see levant. Compare alleviate, elevate, leaven.

Noun

lever (plural levers)

1. (obsolete, except in generalized senses below) A crowbar.
   • 1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, IV.1:

     My lord, I brained him with a lever my neighbour lent me, and he stood by and cried, ‘Strike home, old boy!’

2. (mechanics) A rigid piece which is capable of turning about one point, or axis (the fulcrum), and in which are two or more other points where forces are applied; — used for transmitting and modifying force and motion.
   1. Specifically, a bar of metal, wood or other rigid substance, used to exert a pressure, or sustain a weight, at one point of its length, by receiving a force or power at a second, and turning at a third on a fixed point called a fulcrum. It is usually named as the first of the six mechanical powers, and is of three kinds, according as either the fulcrum F, the weight W, or the power P, respectively, is situated between the other two, as in the figures.
3. A small such piece to trigger or control a mechanical device (like a button).
4. (mechanics) A bar, as a capstan bar, applied to a rotatory piece to turn it.
5. (mechanics) An arm on a rock shaft, to give motion to the shaft or to obtain motion from it.

Translations

Verb

lever (third-person singular simple present levers, present participle levering, simple past and past participle levered)

1. (transitive) To move with a lever.
2. (figuratively, transitive) To use, operate or move (something) like a lever (physically).
   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, 2001, Part Two, Chapter 1,

     Suddenly he had levered himself up from the sofa, rocking the lame man violently, and was walking towards the receptionist.

3. (figuratively, transitive) To use (something) like a lever (in an abstract sense).
   • 2001, Joshua Cooper Ramo, “Bagging the Butcher,” Time, 9 April, 2001,^[3]

     He was a man who levered his way from small-time communist hack to political power by tapping into the most potent vein of historical juice in the Balkans: nationalism.

   • 2013, Robert McCrum, “Biographies of the year — review,” The Guardian, 8 December, 2013,^[4]

     Credited with pioneering the detective novel, Collins has attracted many biographers over the years, drawn to his extraordinary life and work in the hope of levering open a new understanding of the Victorian psyche.

4. (chiefly Britain, finance) To increase the share of debt in the capitalization of a business.

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English lever, comparative of leve, leef (“dear, beloved, lief”), equivalent to lief +? -er. Related to German lieber (“rather”).

Alternative forms

• liever

Adverb

lever (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Rather.
   • 1530, John Heywood, The Four PP

     for I had lever be without ye / Then have suche besines about ye

   • 1537, William Tyndale et al, "Jonah", in The Byble

     Now therefore take my life from me, for I had lever die then live.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faery Queene

     For lever had I die than see his deadly face.

Translations

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French lever.

Noun

lever (plural levers)

1. (rare) A levee.
   • 1742, Miss Robinson, Mrs. Delany's Letters, II.191:

     We do not appear at Phœbus's Levér.

   • 2011, Tim Blanning, "The reinvention of the night", Times Literary Supplement, 21 Sep 2011:

     Louis XIV’s day began with a lever at 9 and ended (officially) at around midnight.

Further reading

• lever in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• lever in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

References

Anagrams

• Revel, elver, revel

Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Danish liuær, from Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, cognate with English liver and German Leber. The Germanic word may be an irregular remodelling of the Proto-Indo-European word for "liver", *yók?r?, cf. Ancient Greek ???? (hêpar) and Latin iecur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?lew??]

Noun

lever c (singular definite leveren, plural indefinite levere)

1. liver

Inflection

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?le???], [?le?w?]

Verb

lever

1. present of leve

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [le??e???]

Verb

lever or levér

1. imperative of levere

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?le?v?r/
• Hyphenation: le?ver
• Rhymes: -e?v?r

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch l?vere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-Germanic *libr?.

Noun

lever f (plural levers, diminutive levertje n)

1. liver
2. edible animal liver as a dish or culinary ingredient

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: lewer
• ? Indonesian: lever

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

lever

1. first-person singular present indicative of leveren
2. imperative of leveren

French

Etymology

From Middle French lever, from Old French lever, from Latin lev?re, present active infinitive of lev? (“to elevate”), from levis (“light, not heavy”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?.ve/
• Homophones: levai, levé, levée, levées, levés, levez

Verb

lever

1. (transitive) To raise, lift.

   Antonym: baisser

2. (reflexive) To rise, stand up.

   Antonym: s'abaisser

3. (reflexive) To get up (out of bed).

   Antonyms: se coucher, s'allonger

4. (reflexive, of fog, rain and etc) To clear, lift.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated mostly like the regular -er verbs (parler and chanter and so on), but the -e- /?/ of the second-to-last syllable becomes -è- /?/ when the next vowel is a silent or schwa -e-. For example, in the third-person singular present indicative, we have il lève rather than *il leve. Other verbs conjugated this way include acheter and mener. Related but distinct conjugations include those of appeler and préférer.

Derived terms

Noun

lever m (plural levers)

1. The act of getting up in the morning.

Further reading

• “lever” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• lèvre

Hungarian

Etymology

le- +? ver

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?l?v?r]
• Hyphenation: le?ver
• Rhymes: -?r

Verb

lever

1. (transitive) to knock down

Conjugation

Derived terms

• leverés

Indonesian

Etymology

From Dutch lever (“liver”), from Middle Dutch l?vere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-Germanic *libr?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?l?v?r]
• Hyphenation: lè?vêr

Noun

lèvêr (first-person possessive leverku, second-person possessive levermu, third-person possessive levernya)

1. liver.

   Synonym: hati

Alternative forms

• liver

Further reading

• “lever” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) Daring, Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2016.

Latin

Verb

l?ver

1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of l?v?

Middle English

Etymology

Comparative of leve (“dear”) of Germanic origin (compare German lieb) or lief.

Adverb

lever

1. Rather.

   For him was lever have at his bed's head
   Twenty bookes, clad in black or red,
   . . . Than robes rich, or fithel, or gay sawtrie. —The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

   But lever than this worldés good
   She would have wist how that it stood —Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, John Gower.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French lever.

Verb

lever

1. to lift

Conjugation

• Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants

• French: lever

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (lever, supplement)

Norwegian Bokmål

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”).

Noun

lever m or f (definite singular leveren or levra, indefinite plural levere or levre or levrer, definite plural leverne or levrene)

1. (anatomy) a liver
2. liver (eaten as food)

Derived terms

• skrumplever

Etymology 2

Verb

lever

1. present tense of leve
2. imperative of levere

References

• “lever” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”). Akin to English liver.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?le???r/ (example of pronunciation)

Noun

lever f (definite singular levra, indefinite plural levrar or levrer, definite plural levrane or levrene)

1. (anatomy) a liver
2. liver (eaten as food)

Alternative forms

• (superseded) livr

Derived terms

• skrumplever

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²le???r/ (example of pronunciation)

Verb

lever

1. present of leve

Further reading

• “lever” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old French

Etymology

From Latin l?v?re, present active infinitive of l?v?.

Verb

lever

1. to lift (up)
2. (reflexive, se level) to get up (get out of bed)

Conjugation

This verb conjugates as a first-group verb ending in -er. The forms that would normally end in *-v, *-vs, *-vt are modified to f, s, t. This verb has a stressed present stem liev distinct from the unstressed stem lev. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

Descendants

• Middle French: lever
  • French: lever

Old Swedish

Etymology

From Old Norse hleifr, from Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz.

Noun

l?ver m

1. loaf, bread

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: lev

Swedish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”).

Noun

lever c

1. (anatomy) a liver

Declension

Etymology 2

Verb

lever

1. present tense of leva.

Further reading

• lever in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• lever in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• lever in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)