endwork

English

Alternative forms

• end-work

Etymology

From end +‎ work. Compare Middle English andwork; Old English andweorc (“cause”).

Noun

endwork (plural endworks)

1. Work done on, about, or toward an end; a result; purpose; goal
   • 1987, Proceedings of the 1986 International Congress on Renewable Energy Sources, Madrid, Spain, 18-23 May 1986, Volume 1:

     The following column lists the units of hydrogen energy necessary to produce the same endwork as the fossil fuels.

   • 2005, Peter Pericles Trifonas, Communities of Difference:

     The endwork of such a critical task that freely places blame or adjudicates value for the sake of a castigation or rejection of worth is performed too quickly and easily.

   • 2012, David Carr, Chan-Fai Cheung, Space, Time and Culture:

     This is most explicit in his essay “What is Metaphysics?” in which the metaphysical tradition is shown as culminating in “Nothing,” which is the “end-point of tradition, ”thus marking the “metaphysical endwork of traditional metaphysics” or tradition's terminus point, after which it passes into another beginning.

   • 2014, Theodor W. Adorno, Thomas Mann, Correspondence 1943-1955:

     The 'opposition' is surely right to speak of 'end-works' in this connection – if only its own products were not so hopelessly unengaging and devoid of comedy.

Synonyms

• product