Word.ws English Dictionary

unwork

unwork verb: to undo or destroy (work previously done).

Verb

unwork (third-person singular simple present unworks, present participle unworking, simple past and past participle unworked or (archaic) unwrought)

  1. (transitive) To undo or destroy (work previously done).

Noun

unwork (uncountable)

  1. The lack or absence of work; worklessness.
    • That comfortable philosophy which modern transcendentalism has but dimly shadowed forth — that poetic agrarianism, which gives all to each and each to all— is the real life of this city of unwork.1892, John Greenleaf Wittier, The Prose of John Greenleaf Wittier
    • Collective bargaining has a crisis of "unwork" — that is, work which Justice Douglas once called "unwanted . . . totally useless." So much "unwork" clutters the table that collective bargaining is no longer able to do what it should: […]1963 Jan, Life

Forms of unwork

third-person singular presentunworks
present participleunworking
past participleunworked
pastunworked
past participle (archaic)unwrought
past (archaic)unwrought

Origin of unwork

From un- + work.

Questions about unwork

What does unwork mean?
Unwork means to undo or destroy (work previously done).
What part of speech is unwork?
Unwork can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of unwork?
The past tense of unwork is unworked.

Words near unwork in the dictionary

  1. unwordable
  2. unwordably
  3. unworded
  4. unwordiness
  5. unwordy
  6. unwork
  7. unworkabilities
  8. unworkability
  9. unworkable
  10. unworkableness
  11. unworkables

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unwork (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: “unwork.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unwork. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.