Word.ws English Dictionary

in the works

in the works prepositional phrase: being planned or worked upon.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Being planned or worked upon.
    • They always have some wonderful new project in the works.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: In a mechanism or machine.
    • Be careful not to get any debris in the works.

Synonyms of in the works

Words formed from in the works

Questions about in the works

What does in the works mean?
In the works means being planned or worked upon.
What part of speech is in the works?
In the works is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the works in the dictionary

  1. in the weeds
  2. in the wild
  3. in the wind
  4. in the wind's eye
  5. in the wink of an eye
  6. in the works
  7. in the world
  8. in the worst way
  9. in the wrong
  10. in the wrong place at the wrong time
  11. in the zone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the works (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-in the works.ogg.

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