Word.ws English Dictionary

put in the work

put in the work verb: to apply the necessary amount of effort and labor to accomplish something.

Verb

put in the work (third-person singular simple present puts in the work, present participle putting in the work, simple past and past participle put in the work)

  1. (informal) To apply the necessary amount of effort and labor to accomplish something.
  2. (slang, vulgar) To perform oral sex on, especially a male on a female.

Forms of put in the work

third-person singular presentputs in the work
present participleputting in the work
past participleput in the work
pastput in the work
alternative formput in that work

Questions about put in the work

What does put in the work mean?
Put in the work means to apply the necessary amount of effort and labor to accomplish something.
What part of speech is put in the work?
Put in the work is a verb.
What is the past tense of put in the work?
The past tense of put in the work is put in the work.

Words near put in the work in the dictionary

  1. put in pledge
  2. put in practice
  3. put in the ground
  4. put in the pin
  5. put in the shade
  6. put in the work
  7. put in with
  8. put in writing
  9. put into action
  10. put into context
  11. put into effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put in the 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.

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