work out
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See also: workout
English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
work out (third-person singular simple present works out, present participle working out, simple past and past participle worked out)
- (transitive) To calculate.
- Can you work out 250 × 12 in your head for me?
- Can you work out how to get to the university by car?
- 2022 January 12, Sir Michael Holden, “Reform of the workforce or death by a thousand cuts?”, in RAIL, number 948, page 22:
- You don't have to be Einstein to work out that this level of government subsidy is unsustainable.
- (transitive) To make sense of.
- Synonym: figure out
- I can't work these instructions out.
- (transitive) To develop or devise in detail; to elaborate.
- to work out a plan
- (transitive) To smooth or perfect.
- This is a beta version; we're still working out the kinks.
- (intransitive) To conclude with the correct solution.
- These figures just don't work out.
- (intransitive) To succeed; to result in a satisfactory situation.
- Are you still seeing John? – No, it didn't work out.
- 1962 August, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 131:
- As everyone knows, almost all booked passenger and freight trains are diagrammed into rosters for engines and men, and in an operating Utopia everything would work out daily according to plan.
- (intransitive) To exercise, especially by lifting weights.
- John won't be here for a while because he's working out.
- Wow, you're looking good! Do you work out?
- (transitive) To strengthen a part one’s body by exercise.
- To work out your core
- (intransitive, US) To earn a wage working away from one's farm.
- 1918, Willa Cather, chapter 5, in My Ántonia[1], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 38:
- The two Russians made good farmhands, and in summer they worked out together.
- 1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 13, in The Grapes of Wrath[2], New York: Viking, published 1958, page 201:
- […] with them good wages, maybe a fella can get hisself a little piece a land an’ work out for extra cash.
- (transitive) To bring about or cause to happen by work or effort.
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- "Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from without - that he himself must work out his own salvation!"
- (transitive, intransitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see work, out.
- Using some tweezers, he worked the bee sting out of his hand.
- He works out of a small office shared with three others.
- (mining) To remove all the mineral that can be profitably exploited.
- The gravel pit had been worked out.
- A worked-out chalk pit or quarry
Quotations[edit]
- 1971, Carol King, “So Far Away”, Tapestry, Ode Records
- If I could only work this life out my way / I’d rather spend it bein' close to you.
- 2009, Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Penguin Books, page 41:
- "I have some questions I need to work out. Big questions."
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to calculate
|
to make sense of
to develop or devise in detail — see also elaborate
|
to conclude with the correct solution
to succeed
|
to exercise
|
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- “work out”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “work out”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English phrasal verbs
- English phrasal verbs with particle (out)
- English multiword terms
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English intransitive verbs
- American English
- en:Mining
- en:Exercise