Word.ws English Dictionary

piece of work

piece of work noun: a product or manufactured article, especially an item of art or craft.

Noun

piece of work (plural pieces of work)

  1. A product or manufactured article, especially an item of art or craft.
    • What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
      how infinite in faculty!c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • “Dead Man Walking” is a powerful and intelligent piece of work.1996, David Ansen "The Killer And The Nun (film review)," Newsweek, 8 Jan.
  2. (derogatory, idiomatic, often) A person who has a strong and unusual personality, especially one with seriously unpleasant character flaws.
    • Ugh! She's a piece of work.
      "A rotten, bad piece, I'd call it," answered Wheedles under his breath.1911, Gabrielle Emilie Jackson, Peggy Stewart at home, page 259
    • She built a reputation as a piece of work; if she didn't like a crowd, sometimes she'd walk off stage in midset and call a cab home.1991 April 29, “Music: The Ballads Of Shirley Horn”, in Newsweek

Synonyms of piece of work

Forms of piece of work

pluralpieces of work

Origin of piece of work

First use appears c. 1473. The idiomatic second sense came about due to Hamlet’s monologue. See cite from sense 1 below.

Questions about piece of work

What does piece of work mean?
Piece of work means a product or manufactured article, especially an item of art or craft.
What part of speech is piece of work?
Piece of work is a noun.
What is the plural of piece of work?
The plural of piece of work is pieces of work.

Words near piece of work in the dictionary

  1. piece of tail
  2. piece of the action
  3. piece of the pie
  4. piece of the puzzle
  5. piece of trash
  6. piece of work
  7. piece out
  8. piece picking
  9. piece pickings
  10. piece rate
  11. piece rates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: piece of 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-piece of work.ogg.

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