Workshop

How to spell workshop

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce workshop

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does workshop mean?

1. nounA room or building where manual work, repairs, or manufacture is carried out.
2. nounA structured meeting or class in which a group works together to learn or develop a skill.

Workshop in a sentence

• He repaired the broken chair in his garage workshop.

• She signed up for a weekend writing workshop at the local college.

• The mechanic ordered new parts for the workshop at the back of the garage.

• The company ran a leadership workshop for new managers.

Where does workshop come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native compound, joining two old Germanic words that English has used for more than a thousand years. The first part, 'work', descends from the Old English 'weorc', meaning labour, toil, or something made by effort. The second part, 'shop', comes from the Old English 'sceoppa', which described a booth or shed where goods were made or sold; the same root gives us the modern 'shop' for a store. By the seventeenth century the two were fused into 'workshop' to name a room or building where manual work or manufacture is carried out. In the twentieth century the meaning broadened to cover a structured meeting or class where people work together to learn or develop something, such as a writing workshop or a training workshop. Because both halves are common, ordinary words, the spelling holds few surprises beyond remembering it is written as one solid word.

How the word is built

• work (labour, task)
• shop (place of trade or making)