outwork
English
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation)
- (verb): enPR: out-wûkʹ, IPA(key): /aʊtˈwɔːk/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (noun): enPR: outʹwûk, IPA(key): /ˈaʊtwɔːk/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (General American)
- (verb): enPR: out-wûrkʹ, IPA(key): /aʊtˈwɔːɹk/
- (noun): enPR: outʹwûrk, IPA(key): /ˈaʊtwɔːɹk/
Verb
outwork (third-person singular simple present outworks, present participle outworking, simple past and past participle outworked)
- (transitive) To work more, faster, or harder than (someone else).
- Hypernym: outdo
- A few may be able to outsmart him, but no one can outwork him.
- 2009, Bill Boggs, Got What It Takes?:
- And I am one of those people who is indefatigable, in the true sense that I beg someone to find someone who can outwork me.
- (rare, obsolete) To work out to a finish; to complete.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- For now three dayes of men were full outwrought, / Since he this hardie enterprize began [...].
Noun
outwork (countable and uncountable, plural outworks)
- (architecture, countable) A minor, subsidiary fortification built beyond the main limits of fortification.
- Coordinate term: fieldwork
- Beyond the castle, scattered outworks offered some protection for the farther-flung peasants.
- Agricultural work done outdoors in the fields.
- Synonym: fieldwork
Translations
a minor, subsidiary fortification built beyond the main limits of fortification
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