Word.ws English Dictionary

work on

work on verb: to apply mental or physical effort to (something) in order to shape, form, improve, investigate, solve it, etc.

Verb

work on (third-person singular simple present works on, present participle working on, simple past and past participle worked on)

  1. (transitive) To apply mental or physical effort to (something) in order to shape, form, improve, investigate, solve it, etc.
    • John's in the studio working on the plans for the new house.
    • I've been working on this problem for several days, but I still haven't figured it out.
  2. (transitive) To exercise influence on someone.
    • Leave it to me. I'll try to work on the boss to give us the day off.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see work, on.
    • Do you work on Sundays?

Forms of work on

third-person singular presentworks on
present participleworking on
past participleworked on
pastworked on

Questions about work on

What does work on mean?
Work on means to apply mental or physical effort to (something) in order to shape, form, improve, investigate, solve it, etc.
What part of speech is work on?
Work on is a verb.
What is the past tense of work on?
The past tense of work on is worked on.

Words near work on in the dictionary

  1. work nights
  2. work of art
  3. work of fiction
  4. work of necessity
  5. work off
  6. work on
  7. work one's buns off
  8. work one's fingers to the bone
  9. work one's guts out
  10. work one's magic
  11. work one's passage

Source and license

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