PIECE OF WORK

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does piece of work mean? 

• PIECE OF WORK (noun)
  The noun PIECE OF WORK has 1 sense:

1. a product produced or accomplished through the effort or activity or agency of a person or thing

  Familiarity information: PIECE OF WORK used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PIECE OF WORK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A product produced or accomplished through the effort or activity or agency of a person or thing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

piece of work; work

Context example:

erosion is the work of wind or water over time

Hypernyms ("piece of work" is a kind of...):

product; production (an artifact that has been created by someone or some process)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "piece of work"):

follow-up; followup (a piece of work that exploits or builds on earlier work)

handcraft; handicraft; handiwork; handwork (a work produced by hand labor)

ironwork (work made of iron (gratings or rails or railings etc))

lacework (work consisting of (or resembling) lace fabric)

lacquerware (a decorative work made of wood and covered with lacquer and often inlaid with ivory or precious metals)

leatherwork (work made of leather)

chef-d'oeuvre; masterpiece (the most outstanding work of a creative artist or craftsman)

metalwork (the metal parts of something)

openwork (ornamental work (such as embroidery or latticework) having a pattern of openings)

polychrome (a piece of work composed of or decorated in many colors)

silverwork (decorative work made of silver)

caning; wicker; wickerwork (work made of interlaced slender branches (especially willow branches))

woodwork (work made of wood; especially moldings or stairways or furniture)

work in progress (a piece of work that is not yet finished)

workpiece (work consisting of a piece of metal being machined)

publication (a copy of a printed work offered for distribution)

 Context examples 

Tomorrow, you shall only do me a very trifling piece of work.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Also, I was very proud of that particular piece of work. I had named it "The Last Turn," and I believed it to be one of the best things I had ever done.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I was astonished to find what a piece of work was made of it!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A chief rationale for peer review is that rarely is just one person, or one closely working group, able to spot every mistake or weakness in a complicated piece of work.

(Peer Review, NCI Thesaurus)

Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson, said he; and I have a piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man’s life on this planet.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Wife, wife, said Frederick, what a pretty piece of work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money: how came you to do such a thing?

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Her entreaty had no effect on Tom: he only said again what he had said before; and it was not merely Tom, for the requisition was now backed by Maria, and Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Yates, with an urgency which differed from his but in being more gentle or more ceremonious, and which altogether was quite overpowering to Fanny; and before she could breathe after it, Mrs. Norris completed the whole by thus addressing her in a whisper at once angry and audible—“What a piece of work here is about nothing: I am quite ashamed of you, Fanny, to make such a difficulty of obliging your cousins in a trifle of this sort—so kind as they are to you!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Tom listened with some shame and some sorrow; but escaping as quickly as possible, could soon with cheerful selfishness reflect, firstly, that he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; secondly, that his father had made a most tiresome piece of work of it; and, thirdly, that the future incumbent, whoever he might be, would, in all probability, die very soon.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)