The English verb work was once known as wircan 1500 years ago meaning, "to operate and to function". The noun work was once worc which meant, "something done: deed, action, proceeding, business, or military fortification". Both words came from the Proto-Indo-European base *werg making work over five thousand years old.
Earliest Use of 'Work'
The earliest meaning of work was to describe any kind of action involving effort or exertion, "it was hard work rowing, for the wind was against him". This negative connotation has seemed to stick to work throughout the centuries. By the late 18th century work was used as a verb to mean negatively influencing or persuading someone’s will. By the early 19th century work described a criminal act or activity, and by the mid 20th century works described a drug addict’s equipment for taking drugs. In Old English work also had the meaning of fornication- a meaning that dissipated before the Middle English period.
As an unusual contrast, work also had very positive connotations. It was used in theology in late Middle English to describe good or moral acts or deeds. It was also neutrally used to describe what a person (or thing) had to do in the future, be it a task or a function, "Fie upon this quiet life! I want work" (1590).
Work as Employment
Most common in Modern English however is work used to describe one’s regular occupation or employment. Work could describe the result of employment be it, "the operation, action, or labour of a worker". By late Middle English work could describe the style and workmanship of an object, "A rare clock of German worke", and even a general characteristic effect, "heat had done its work on them by turns" (1635). The term worker to describe a bee was first recorded from 1747, and the noun working-class from 1789.
Work as Art
From Middle English onwards work was used to describe a literary or musical composition. This extended by the late 17th century to an architectural or engineering structure. By the mid 16th century mathematicians had adopted the word work to mean the process of a calculation written out in full. Work was then borrowed by physicists in the middle of the 19th century to mean, "the operation of a force in producing movement". In the early 20th century work out was used as boxing jargon to mean "strenuous physical exercise".
Conclusion
The word work has therefore traveled through a semantic journey of meaning – from a verb signifying exertion, to a noun describing good deeds, to both a noun and verb signifying employment and works of art and mathematical calculations.
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