at work
851
1.0
- idiom
- It's my first day at work.
- hard at work
- arrive at work
- home or at work
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Watch on YouTubeWe're going to encounter them at work, at school and at home.
- We're going to encounter them at work, at school and at home.
- They harass someone at work, they finally get called out.
- And they would smoke at work, they'd come home and smoke.
- Try it with that person at work who you don't like.
- And when they're at work, that means they're down range.
- How do you create that culture at work that matches the company's value?
- Going above and beyond at work could compromise their mental health.
- I just had a drama at work, you know?
- You know, when I'm at work, I'm at work.
Examples
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I've been at work today for a long time.
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At least no one at work knew it was my birthday.
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Actually, we're spending less time at work than we used to.
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You know, it's your last day at work, so why not go for it?
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I'll see if I can get more hours at work.
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At work, I thought about him all day.
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Aren't you supposed to be at work?
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I don't wanna bother you at work.
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I'm super busy at work, he responds.
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I will be at work early tomorrow to finish my project.
Synonyms
612
1.0
Having a job and earning money from it
252
2.7
At work doing your job
How Busy
Surface Forms
Morphology
at + work
The meaning 'present at one's place of employment or engaged in job duties' is directly derivable from combining 'at' (a locative preposition) with 'work' (place of employment), a straightforward preposition + noun compositional pattern. This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows standard English locative phrasing, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
At work comes from the simple picture of a person standing at their work, either at the place where they do it or right by the task. So it means 'at the workplace' or 'doing their job'.