worker
[wur-ker]
- a person or thing that works.
- a laborer or employee: steel workers.
- a person engaged in a particular field, activity, or cause: a worker in psychological research; a worker for the Republican Party.
- Entomology.
- a member of a caste of sexually underdeveloped, nonreproductive bees, specialized to collect food and maintain the hive.
- a similar member of a specialized caste of ants, termites, or wasps.
- Printing. one of a set of electrotyped plates used to print from (contrasted with molder2).
- any of several rollers covered with card clothing that work in combination with the stripper rollers and the cylinder in the carding of fibers.
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Origin of worker
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for worker
Contemporary Examples
“We thought it must be the children playing some game,” a worker at the school told Reuters.
Taliban: We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped AmericaSami Yousafzai
December 16, 2014
We meet a worker named Joan, who tries to escape but is dragged back in after sustaining a gory walker bite on her arm.
The Walking Dead’s ‘Slabtown’: The Real Source of Terror Isn’t Walkers, It’s RapeMelissa Leon
November 3, 2014
As far as worker exploitation goes, working conditions in black markets are nearly always worse.
Then there is the fact that officially every French worker is entitled to 31 days of paid vacation.
Obama’s Extravagant Summer Break? More Like, America’s Vacation-Deficit DisorderClive Irving
August 10, 2014
There is one theory that they were both exposed by a Liberian worker in the contamination crew who fell ill.
Historical Examples
Yes, it was simply that: she was making him a man, a worker, a lover once more.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
He is as thorough a worker in the cause of religion, morality and benevolence as in trade.
Cleveland Past and PresentMaurice Joblin
Plainly, just so much as the means of life cost which will keep up the worker's strength.
FreelandTheodor Hertzka
The very word itself implies that the profit of the labour is the worker's own.
FreelandTheodor Hertzka
His father was probably a worker in glass, to which trade Bernard was brought up.
Self-HelpSamuel Smiles
worker
- a person or thing that works, usually at a specific joba good worker; a research worker
- an employee in an organization, as opposed to an employer or manager
- a manual labourer or other employee working in a manufacturing or other industry
- any other member of the working class
- a sterile female member of a colony of bees, ants, or wasps that forages for food, cares for the larvae, etc
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for worker
n.
as a type of bee, 1747, agent noun from work (v.).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper