worker
Americannoun
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workers
plural
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a person or thing that works.
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a laborer or employee.
steel workers.
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a person engaged in a particular field, activity, or cause.
a worker in psychological research; a worker for the Republican Party.
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Entomology.
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a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped, nonreproductive bees, specialized to collect food and maintain the hive.
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a similar member of a specialized caste of ants, termites, or wasps.
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Printing. one of a set of electrotyped plates used to print from (contrasted with molder).
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any of several rollers covered with card clothing that work in combination with the stripper rollers and the cylinder in the carding of fibers.
noun
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a person or thing that works, usually at a specific job
a good worker
a research worker
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an employee in an organization, as opposed to an employer or manager
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a manual labourer or other employee working in a manufacturing or other industry
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any other member of the working class
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a sterile female member of a colony of bees, ants, or wasps that forages for food, cares for the larvae, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of worker
First recorded in 1300–50, worker is from the Middle English word werker, worcher. See work, -er 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She is a mother, a daughter, a community center worker, an artist — and a woman with a complicated romantic and family history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
He worked as a cabdriver and postal worker.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
In 1983, when the Ohio strikers were in their mid-30s, the median 25- to 34-year-old American worker had been with the same employer for three years; in 2022, the figure was 2.8 years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
The Care Quality Commission said there was no single qualification that automatically qualified someone to work as a care worker.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
“The social worker said it was highly unusual, the way the name was entered in your file. ”
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
When workers attempt to walk, they encounter a landscape built for vehicles, said Heidi Simon, a director of urban-planning at nonprofit Smart Growth America.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
Others say it is impossible to find workers in the region.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026
Fishermen and local workers can build and install it themselves from their own village harbour.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
The company is digging in on its plans to lay off as many as 500 workers at its Stelco operations as the government weighs legal options to protect workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
The guards at the entry gate kept the workers waiting.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
