worker
/ˈwɝ.kɚ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.43 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor.
noun
A nonreproductive social insect, such as ant, bee, termite, or wasp.
noun
A nonreproductive social insect, such as ant, bee, termite, or wasp.
noun
A thread performing one instance of a particular task within a program.
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonym: employee"
- "Fret not thy ſelfe becauſe of euill doers, neither bee thou enuious againſt the workers of iniquitie."
- "Writer Ta Chen, in a statistical study of industrial labor in China in 1933, recorded that 66.6 percent of the total number of workers in the four main industrial regions of Kwangtung were women. In Shun-te, 81.2 percent of the labor force were women."
- "Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese […] began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated. The poisoning was irreversible, and soon ended in psychosis and death. Nowadays workers are exposed to far lower doses and manganism is rare."
- "Although the radiation levels identified are high, a threat to human health is very unlikely because apart from workers at the site, no-one goes there."
- "That would allow employers to keep some tip money for themselves, as long as each worker made at least the full federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *wr̥ǵyéti Proto-Germanic *wurkijaną Proto-West Germanic *wurkijan Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Indo-European *wérǵom Proto-Germanic *werką Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Germanic *-janą Proto-Germanic *wirkijaną Proto-West Germanic *wirkijan Old English wyrċan Middle English worchen Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere Middle English werkere, worchere English worker Inherited from Middle English worchere, werkere, equivalent to work + -er. Displaced the older term wright, from Old English wyrhta.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: worchere
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwɝ.kɚ/
- British English: /ˈwɜː.kə/