Word.ws English Dictionary

work stealing

work stealing noun: an algorithm and scheduling strategy for multithreaded computer programs, where a thread can "steal" work from queues of the other threads.

Noun

work stealing (uncountable)

  1. An algorithm and scheduling strategy for multithreaded computer programs, where a thread can "steal" work from queues of the other threads.
    • An advantage of work stealing is that if all threads are already busy, then they do not waste time trying to offload work on one another.2011, Maurice Herlihy, Nir Shavit, The Art of Multiprocessor Programming, Morgan Kaufmann, →ISBN, page 381

Questions about work stealing

What does work stealing mean?
Work stealing means an algorithm and scheduling strategy for multithreaded computer programs, where a thread can "steal" work from queues of the other threads.
What part of speech is work stealing?
Work stealing is a noun.

Words near work stealing in the dictionary

  1. work songs
  2. work spouse
  3. work spouses
  4. work station
  5. work stations
  6. work stealing
  7. work surface
  8. work surfaces
  9. work the angles
  10. work the audience
  11. work the bar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: work stealing (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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