works

Pluralworks

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of work.

   The committee works closely with local schools each term.

   This medication works by blocking certain receptors in the brain.

   Note

   The same spelling as the noun plural, with the opposite job. On the verb, -s marks one subject (she works); on the noun it marks many (her works). The verb often leans on a preposition, and the choice carries the meaning: works at a bank, works in retail, works as a nurse, works for a firm, works with children.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of work in its countable senses.

   The retrospective gathered the artist's major works from four decades.

   Several of the composer's late works reshaped the string quartet.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of work take this plural. When work means labor or effort spent on a task, it stays uncountable: a lot of work, not a lot of works. So the -s signals separate, nameable things, like a composer's late works. One older countable use, a factory, survives mainly as the industrial works, whose -s no longer marks plurality at all.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A factory, or a collection of industrial buildings and facilities where manufacturing takes place.

   The town grew up around a sprawling textile works in the nineteenth century.

   After the steel works shut, thousands of families lost their income.

   Similarfactory, plant, mill

   Note

   Plural in shape, often singular in grammar: the steel works almost fills the valley, with fills, not fill. One works can be a single plant, and the same form covers several, so the verb follows the meaning. It usually comes after the product made there, as in steel works or cement works. In W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918), cement works are the scene of a union row over blacklegs.

4. 4
   nounpluralwith the

   Everything that is available or possible, especially every topping that can go on a food item.

   I'll have the burger with the works: cheese, bacon, onions, and pickles.

   The wedding had the works: a live band, a dance floor, and an open bar.

   Note

   A fixed phrase rather than a free noun: it always appears as the works, never with a or some. At the counter it usually follows with (a burger with the works). Elsewhere it closes a list and sums it up, as in Ralph Farquhar's Krush Groove (1985): limousine, champagne, the works. Because it promises completeness, it suits sales talk and bragging as well as lunch orders.

5. 5
   nounplural

   The internal mechanism or machinery of something; the parts that make it function.

   The watchmaker carefully oiled the delicate works inside the case.

   Something in the works had seized, so the printing press wouldn't start.

   Similarmechanism, machinery, innards

   Note

   Machinery seen from the inside, and always plural in form: a clock or a press has works, never a work. The idiom gum up the works carries it into everyday speech, where the works can be any system that jams. Dickens plays on the literal picture in Great Expectations, giving a man a throat that clicks as if he had works in him like a clock and was about to strike.

6. 6
   nounpluralwith the

   Drastic or abusive treatment; a beating, severe criticism, or summary dismissal.

   Internal affairs gave the suspect the works during the long interrogation.

   When the scandal broke, the press gave the senator the works.

   Note

   The darker twin of the "everything" meaning, built the same way with the and usually with get or give. Jimmy Kennedy's 1953 lyric asks why Constantinople got the works. Only context separates a full treatment from a punishing one. Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (1995) leans on that ambiguity with a narrator who wanted the works rather than consolation, and got it.

7. 7
   nounslangplural

   The equipment used to inject heroin or other drugs, including syringes, needles, and related paraphernalia.

   Paramedics found the works on the table beside him when they arrived.

   Needle exchanges hand out clean works to help curb infections.

   Similarparaphernalia, kit

   Note

   Slang for an injector's kit, and plural in form like the other uses of works. It readily takes a possessive. Gillian G. Gaar's The Rough Guide to Nirvana (2009) recalls San Francisco signs during the AIDS crisis that read "Bleach Your Works." For readers who may not know the slang, needles or syringes is the safer choice.

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