working order

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working order (uncountable)

1. (especially of machinery) The state or condition of being operational or of functioning acceptably.
   • 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XLV, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 315:

     [T]he Commission got itself into systematic working order, and for weeks the contributions flowed into its treasury in a generous stream.

   • 1908, H. G. Wells, chapter 10, in The War in the Air:

     The engine was in working order.

   • 1944 January and February, “Light Railways in Derbyshire”, in Railway Magazine, page 25:

     The locomotive stock consists of three of the six original American-built 4-6-0 tanks, named Bridget, Peggy, and Hummy, all in clean condition and good working order; [...].

   • 1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 166-167:

     The Hedjaz Railway is best known for its connections to T. E. Lawrence, whose fame as "El Orens", the railway wrecker, spread quickly throughout Arabia. He arrived at Yenbo in December, 1916, and immediately started his campaign to sabotage the railway, but to keep it sufficiently in working order to allow supplies to reach Medina.

   • 1961 January, “The latest in Continental electric multiple-units and their operation”, in Trains Illustrated, page 47:

     Each coach on the Swedish Yoa2 is 57ft long and 10ft 4in wide; with its two traction motors the unit weighs 79 tons in working order and has a maximum speed of under 60 m.p.h.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 98:

     Upstream from the house is a watermill, cased in gleaming white weather-boarding, which has been restored to working order. Near by is the water-driven turbine which [Rudyard] Kipling had installed in 1902 to light his mansion with electricity.

   • 2003 September 22, Unmesh Kher, “3 Flawed Assumptions About Postwar Iraq”, in Time:

     The Pentagon's plans assumed that Iraq's industrial base and utilities were in working order.

• Thesaurus:out of order

• “working order”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.