Word.ws English Dictionary

daywork

UK/ˈdeɪwɜːk/US/ˈdeɪwɝk/

daywork noun: the work done in a day; a day's work.

Noun

daywork (countable and uncountable, plural dayworks)

  1. (archaic) The work done in a day; a day's work.
  2. (obsolete) The amount of land that can be worked in a day.
  3. Work carried out or paid for on a daily basis; day labour.
  4. Work done during the day; specifically, the cover-work carried out by someone involved in intelligence work, as opposed to their secret activities.
    • ‘The task of servicing such moles is not entrusted to normal overseas residencies but to a Karla representative, as he is known, usually a military officer, whose daywork is to be an attaché of an Embassy.’1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 257

Forms of daywork

pluraldayworks
alternative formday work
alternative formday-work

Origin of daywork

From Middle English daywork, daywerk, from Old English dæġweorc, from Proto-West Germanic *dagawerk, from Proto-Germanic *dagawerką. By surface analysis, day + work.

Questions about daywork

What does daywork mean?
Daywork means the work done in a day; a day's work.
What part of speech is daywork?
Daywork is a noun.
How do you pronounce daywork?
Daywork is pronounced /ˈdeɪwɜːk/ (UK).
What is the plural of daywork?
The plural of daywork is dayworks.

Words near daywork in the dictionary

  1. daywalks
  2. dayward
  3. daywatch
  4. daywatches
  5. daywear
  6. daywork
  7. dayworker
  8. dayworkers
  9. dayworks
  10. dayyan
  11. dayyanim

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: daywork (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.

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