to put to work
78
3.2
- phrasal verb
:
poner a trabajar (personas/recursos)
- Many music educators have computers and put them to work in a variety of important ways.
- put to work people
- put to work skills
- put to work ideas
Cardone that you'll put that money to work, OK?
- Cardone that you'll put that money to work, OK?
- It has an ancient root, but we can also put this to work in interesting ways.
- But then there's a trick because the slave is put to work on things.
- And then they did and then come straight out of that and put that money to work great.
- He said, well, we have so much cash we need to put it to work.
- We'll learn them all how to dress proper and put them straight to work.
- Don't ask questions unless you want to be put to work.
- So why say we either put them to work or tell them to take a four legged hike?
Examples
-
When the engineers passed out their device, the women said thanks and put the sheller to work.
Academic text (2006) -
We can use that to put our people back to work.
-
And the book is more about how to take what we learned in these places and put it to work in your life.
-
But I am putting you to work.
-
I say let's put it to work.
-
The government has begun a variety of programs to put people to work, even artists.
Fiction book (1997) -
And now, at home, the mothers of America are putting this advice to work.
Fiction book (1998) -
I'll put my clerk to work on it.
-
So go after your dreams, follow your spark, put your freedom to work for you and discover what you're capable of.
-
During World War II, the government put scientists to work finding creative new weapons.
Synonyms
7
3.2
To begin working right away with energy
1
7.3
To make a machine start working
Antonyms
How Active
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'put' = bring into a state and 'work' = perform tasks, with 'to' marking direction into that state, so 'put to work' straightforwardly means cause someone/something to start working or assign tasks. This follows a common English verb + prepositional phrase pattern and has close parallels in many languages (e.g., Spanish 'poner a trabajar'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrase put to work may come from farming, where a farmer would put a horse or ox to work by tying it to a plow and sending it into the field. So today it means 'to make someone or something start working' or 'to give tasks'.