Workings

How to spell workings

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce workings

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does workings mean?

1. nounThe internal parts or processes by which something operates or is organised.
2. nounThe written steps showing how a mathematical or logical result was reached.
3. nounThe excavated parts of a mine or quarry where material has been dug out.

Workings in a sentence

• The engineer explained the inner workings of the gearbox to the trainees.

• The exam asked candidates to show their workings for each answer.

• Surveyors mapped the old workings beneath the village before approving new houses.

• Few employees understood the workings of the company's pricing system.

• She lost marks because her workings were missing from the page.

• The abandoned workings had flooded after decades of neglect.

Where does workings come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb 'wyrcan', meaning 'to do, make, or labour', which belonged to a broad family of Germanic words; its close relatives survive in Dutch 'werken' and German 'wirken'. The matching noun 'weorc' gave us modern 'work', and from it English built the verbal noun 'working', describing the activity or process of operating. By the time the plural 'workings' settled into common use it carried the idea of the parts or steps that make something function, so the inner gears of a machine or the stages of a calculation could both be called its workings. The spelling is reassuringly regular, since it simply stacks the familiar suffix '-ing' and a plural '-s' onto the everyday root 'work'. The same ancient root also underlies 'wright' (as in playwright), an old word for a maker or builder.

How the word is built

• work (root: to labour, operate)
• -ing (noun-forming suffix)
• -s (plural)