Workflow

How to spell workflow

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce workflow

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does workflow mean?

1. nounThe sequence of steps or processes through which a piece of work passes from start to completion.

Workflow in a sentence

• The new software streamlined our entire workflow from order to delivery.

• Managers mapped each workflow to find where delays were occurring.

Where does workflow come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound, built straightforwardly from two old native words. 'Work' comes from the Old English 'weorc', meaning labour or a thing done, while 'flow' comes from the Old English 'flowan', meaning to move along like a stream. The two were joined in industrial and managerial English of the early twentieth century to describe how a task moves through successive stages, much as water flows along a channel. The term gained wide currency with office automation and computing from the 1970s onward, where it names the ordered sequence of steps that carry a job from start to finish. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the only spelling decision is whether to write it as one word, and modern usage settles firmly on the single closed form 'workflow'.

How the word is built

• work (labour, task)
• flow (movement, sequence)