Word.ws English Dictionary

-work

-work suffix: denoting a craft involving a particular material, tool, or practitioner.

Suffix

-work

  1. Denoting a craft involving a particular material, tool, or practitioner
    • masonwork
    • metalwork
    Synonyms:
    -craft
  2. Denoting a structure or work of art crafted chiefly from a given material
    • ironwork
    • paintwork
  3. Denoting the structure or mechanism of a given object.
    • bridgework
    • clockwork

Synonyms of -work

Origin of -work

From Middle English -work, -werk, from Old English -weorc, -ġeweorc, equivalent to English work. Compare also Saterland Frisian -werk, Dutch -werk, German -werk, Norwegian -verk.

Questions about -work

What does -work mean?
-work means denoting a craft involving a particular material, tool, or practitioner.
What part of speech is -work?
-work is a suffix.

Words near -work in the dictionary

  1. -wide
  2. -wise
  3. -witz
  4. -woman
  5. -women
  6. -work
  7. -worth
  8. -worthy
  9. -x
  10. -x-
  11. -xaban

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -work (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “-work.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-work. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.