Word.ws English Dictionary

makes short work of

makes short work of is the third-person singular simple present indicative of make short work of.

Meaning of make short work of

Verb

make short work of (third-person singular simple present makes short work of, present participle making short work of, simple past and past participle made short work of)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To do (a task) relatively quickly or easily.
    • A good electric screwdriver will make short work of the disassembly process.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To deal with or overcome (someone or something) quickly and without difficulty.
    • "There was desperate characters here, but the vigilantes made short work of 'em."1897, Maynard Barbour, chapter 26, in The Award of Justice

Questions about makes short work of

What is makes short work of the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Makes short work of is the third-person singular simple present indicative of make short work of.

Words near makes short work of in the dictionary

  1. makes room
  2. makes sense
  3. makes shift
  4. makes shit of
  5. makes shit shake
  6. makes short work of
  7. makes some noise
  8. makes someone hard to catch
  9. makes someone's acquaintance
  10. makes someone's blood boil
  11. makes someone's day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: makes short work of (page history and authors); make short work of (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: “makes short work of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/makes_short_work_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.