works

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɜːks/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wɝks/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ks

works

1. plural of work in its countable senses

• worked (adjective), wrought (adjective)

works (plural works)

1. A factory or factories, or a similar collection(s) of industrial facilities.

   The steel works almost fills the valley.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.

works pl (plural only)

1. A mechanism or machinery; the means by which something happens.

   Hyponym: millworks

   Aged and degraded oil and grease can really gum up the works.

   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 37:

     Something clicked in his throat, as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike.

3. (with "the") Everything or everything that is available or possible; especially, all available toppings on food.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:everything

   I'll have a Behemoth Burger with the works.

   • 1974, Brian Eno, “Dead Finks Don't Talk”, in Here Come the Warm Jets:

     My my they wanted the works, can you this and that / I never got a letter back

   • 1985, Ralph Farquhar, Krush Groove, spoken by Terri Beiker (Charles Stettler):

     You like this? Limousine, champagne, the works. I'd get you on MTV, a national tour. Sponsorship. You name it.

4. (with "the") Drastic treatment; abuse; the axe (dismissal).
   • 1953, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, Jimmy Kennedy (lyrics):

     Why did Constantinople get the works?

   • 1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 161:

     It's not, really, but I didn't want consolation. I wanted the works, and I got it, too.

5. (slang) A heroin or other drug addict's equipment: syringes, needles, etc.
   • 2009, Gillian G. Gaar, The Rough Guide to Nirvana‎^[1], Rough Guides UK, →ISBN:

     While in San Francisco, where the AIDS crisis was particularly devastating, they saw numerous public awareness signs reading “Bleach Your Works” posted around the city, urging IV drug users to clean their needles with bleach to help staunch the spread of the disease.

• (mechanism or machinery): spanner in the works

works

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of work

• all the way
• in the works
• the whole nine yards
• the whole shebang
• the whole shop