Word.ws English Dictionary

making short work of

making short work of is the present participle and gerund 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 making short work of

What is making short work of the present participle and gerund of?
Making short work of is the present participle and gerund of make short work of.

Words near making short work of in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: making 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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