working

working
    adj 1: actively engaged in paid work; "the working population";
           "the ratio of working men to unemployed"; "a working
           mother"; "robots can be on the job day and night" [syn:
           {working(a)}, {on the job(p)}]
    2: adequate for practical use; especially sufficient in strength
       or numbers to accomplish something; "the party has a working
       majority in the House"; "a working knowledge of Spanish"
    3: adopted as a temporary basis for further work; "a working
       draft"; "a working hypothesis"
    4: (of e.g. a machine) performing or capable of performing; "in
       running (or working) order"; "a functional set of brakes"
       [syn: {running(a)}, {operative}, {functional}, {working(a)}]
    5: serving to permit or facilitate further work or activity;
       "discussed the working draft of a peace treaty"; "they need
       working agreements with their neighbor states on interstate
       projects"
    n 1: a mine or quarry that is being or has been worked [syn:
         {working}, {workings}]
    

Work \Work\ (w[^u]rk), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Worked} (w[^u]rkt),
   or {Wrought} (r[add]t); p. pr. & vb. n. {Working}.] [AS.
   wyrcean (imp. worthe, wrohte, p. p. geworht, gewroht); akin
   to OFries. werka, wirka, OS. wirkian, D. werken, G. wirken,
   Icel. verka, yrkja, orka, Goth. wa['u]rkjan. [root]145. See
   {Work}, n.]
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   1. 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.
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            O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,
            To match thy goodness?                --Shak.
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            Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw
            be given you.                         --Ex. v. 18.
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            Whether we work or play, or sleep or wake,
            Our life doth pass.                   --Sir J.
                                                  Davies.
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   2. Hence, in a general sense, to operate; to act; to perform;
      as, a machine works well.
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            We bend to that the working of the heart. --Shak.
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   3. Hence, figuratively, to be effective; to have effect or
      influence; to conduce.
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            We know that all things work together for good to
            them that love God.                   --Rom. viii.
                                                  28.
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            This so wrought upon the child, that afterwards he
            desired to be taught.                 --Locke.
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            She marveled how she could ever have been wrought
            upon to marry him.                    --Hawthorne.
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   4. To carry on business; to be engaged or employed
      customarily; to perform the part of a laborer; to labor;
      to toil.
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            They that work in fine flax . . . shall be
            confounded.                           --Isa. xix. 9.
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   5. 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.
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            Confused with working sands and rolling waves.
                                                  --Addison.
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   6. 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.
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            Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
            Proportioned to each kind.            --Milton.
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   7. To ferment, as a liquid.
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            The working of beer when the barm is put in.
                                                  --Bacon.
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   8. To act or operate on the stomach and bowels, as a
      cathartic.
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            Purges . . . work best, that is, cause the blood so
            to do, . . . in warm weather or in a warm room.
                                                  --Grew.
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   {To work at}, to be engaged in or upon; to be employed in.

   {To work to windward} (Naut.), to sail or ply against the
      wind; to tack to windward. --Mar. Dict.
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Working \Work"ing\,
   a & n. from {Work}.
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         The word must cousin be to the working.  --Chaucer.
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   {Working beam}. See {Beam}, n. 10.

   {Working class}, the class of people who are engaged in
      manual labor, or are dependent upon it for support;
      laborers; operatives; -- chiefly used in the plural.

   {Working day}. See under {Day}, n.

   {Working drawing}, a drawing, as of the whole or part of a
      structure, machine, etc., made to a scale, and intended to
      be followed by the workmen. Working drawings are either
      general or detail drawings.

   {Working house}, a house where work is performed; a
      workhouse.

   {Working point} (Mach.), that part of a machine at which the
      effect required; the point where the useful work is done.
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188 Moby Thesaurus words for "working":
      accomplishment, acetification, acidification, acidulation, act,
      acting, action, active, activism, activity, agency, alive,
      alkalization, answer, ascertainment, at it, at work, banausic,
      barmy, behavior, behavioral, breadwinning, businesslike, busy,
      carbonation, catalysis, chemicalization, clearing up, commercial,
      conduct, contour plowing, cracking, cultivating, cultivation,
      culture, decipherment, decoding, denouement, determination,
      diastatic, direction, disentanglement, doing, dressing, driving,
      drudging, dynamic, electrolysis, employed, employment, end,
      end result, engaged, enzymic, execution, exercise, explanation,
      exploitation, fallowing, ferment, fermentation, fermenting,
      finding, finding-out, full of business, function, functional,
      functioning, furrowing, going, going on, grinding, grubbing,
      handling, hard at it, hard at work, hardworking, harrowing, hoeing,
      hydrogenation, in exercise, in force, in hand, in harness,
      in operation, in play, in practice, in process, in the works,
      inaction, interpretation, isomerism, issue, laboring, leavening,
      listing, live, management, manipulation, materialistic, metamerism,
      metamerization, moneymaking, movements, nitration, occupation,
      occupied, on duty, on foot, on the fire, on the go, on the hop,
      on the job, on the jump, on the move, on the run, ongoing,
      operancy, operating, operation, operational, operations, operative,
      outcome, oxidation, oxidization, pegging, performance, performing,
      phosphatization, play, plodding, plowing, plugging, polymerism,
      polymerization, position isomerism, practical, practice,
      practicing, praxis, prosaic, pruning, raising, realistic, reason,
      reduction, resolution, resolving, responsibility, result, riddling,
      running, saturization, serving, slaving, slogging, solution,
      solving, sorting out, steering, straining, striving, struggling,
      sweating, swing, thinning, tied up, tilling, toiling, unraveling,
      unriddling, unscrambling, unspinning, untangling, untwisting,
      unweaving, upshot, using, utilitarian, utilization, weeding, work,
      workaday, workday, working-out, workings, yeasty