noun
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hard or unpleasant work
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a rare word for piecework
Etymology
Origin of taskwork
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.
Those at taskwork had fivepence, and in some cases as low as threepence per diem.
From The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines by John O'Rourke
For most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.
From Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold by Matthew Arnold
Men are not what they seem to the outward eye—mere machines moving about in customary occupations—productive labourers of food and wearing apparel—slaves from morn to night at taskwork set them by the Wealth of Nations.
From Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I (of 2) by John Lyde Wilson
Scratched table, desks, copybooks, and worn grammars, had more the air of a comfortable occupation than of the shabby haunt of irksome taskwork.
From The Young Step-Mother by Charlotte Mary Yonge
The only thing that troubles me for you is the taskwork of investigation.
From Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. Edited by his Daughter by Mary Elizabeth Dewey
Definitions 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.
