different between work vs trouble

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

Verb is from Middle English troublen, trublen, turblen, troblen, borrowed from Old French troubler, trobler, trubler, metathetic variants of tourbler, torbler, turbler, from Vulgar Latin *turbul?re, from Latin turbula (“disorderly group, a little crowd or people”), diminutive of turba (“stir; crowd”). The noun is from Middle English truble, troble, from Old French troble, from the verb.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tr?b??l; IPA^(key): /?t??b(?)l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?t??b(?)l/, /?t??-/
• Rhymes: -?b?l
• Hyphenation: trou?ble

Noun

trouble (countable and uncountable, plural troubles)

1. A distressing or dangerous situation.

2. A difficulty, problem, condition, or action contributing to such a situation.

3. A violent occurrence or event.

4. Efforts taken or expended, typically beyond the normal required.
   • 1850, William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller

     She never took the trouble to close them.

   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     Indeed, by the report of our elders, this nervous preparation for old age is only trouble thrown away.

5. A malfunction.

6. Liability to punishment; conflict with authority.

7. (mining) A fault or interruption in a stratum.
8. (Cockney rhyming slang) Wife. Clipping of trouble and strife.

Usage notes

• Verbs often used with "trouble": make, spell, stir up, ask for, etc.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:difficult situation

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take for uses and meaning of trouble collocated with these words.

Verb

trouble (third-person singular simple present troubles, present participle troubling, simple past and past participle troubled)

1. (transitive, now rare) To disturb, stir up, agitate (a medium, especially water).
2. (transitive) To mentally distress; to cause (someone) to be anxious or perplexed.

   What she said about narcissism is troubling me.
3. (transitive) In weaker sense: to bother or inconvenience.

   I will not trouble you to deliver the letter.

4. (reflexive or intransitive) To take pains to do something.

   I won't trouble to post the letter today; I can do it tomorrow.

5. (intransitive) To worry; to be anxious.
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.26:

     Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain.

Related terms

• turbid
• turbulent

Translations

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• -buterol, Boulter, boulter

French

Etymology 1

Deverbal of troubler or from Old French troble.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?ubl/

Noun

trouble m (plural troubles)

1. trouble
2. (medicine) disorder

Derived terms

• trouble de la personnalité
• trouble obsessionnel compulsif

Verb

trouble

1. first-person singular present indicative of troubler
2. third-person singular present indicative of troubler
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of troubler
5. second-person singular imperative of troubler

Etymology 2

From Old French troble, probably from a Vulgar Latin *turbulus (with metathesis), itself perhaps an alteration of Latin turbidus with influence from turbulentus; cf. also turbula. Compare Catalan tèrbol, Romanian tulbure.

Adjective

trouble (plural troubles)

1. (of a liquid) murky, turbid, muddy, thick, clouded, cloudy; not clear

Derived terms

• pêcher en eau trouble

Further reading

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