at work

at work

1. At one's place of employment. Mom, I can't help you right now, I'm at work. How much longer will you be at work?
2. Engaged in a particular task. Your father is hard at work in the garage, trying to fix his car. Don't disturb Alice while she's at work on her term paper.
See also: work
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

at work

 
1. at one's place of work. I'm sorry to call you at work, but this is important. She's at work now. She'll be home at supper time.
2. working [at something]; busy [with something]. (See also at play.) Tom is presently at work on his project. He'll be finished in a half hour. Don't disturb me when I'm busy at work.
See also: work
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

at work

1. Engaged in a job or other activity, as in The contractor is hard at work on the new building, or The little boy was fascinated to see the washing machine at work. [Early 1600s]
2. At one's office or other place of business, as in Is it all right if I telephone you at work? [Late 1800s]
See also: work
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

at work

1. Engaged in labor; working: at work on a new project.
2. In operation: inflationary forces at work in the economy.
See also: work
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • go to work
  • go/set to work
  • go shares
  • offed
  • off
  • off from work
  • commute
  • commute (something) into (something)
  • commute into
  • go about your work
References in periodicals archive
Despite these shortcomings, Men at Work makes an important contribution to the literature on development.
The company believes that employees who handle some of their personal business at work will take less time off.
During 1994, approximately one million people were victims of violent workplace incidents at work, representing 15 percent of the victims of violent acts in the United States (Bachman, 1994).
For example, when teaching how to be implicitly out at work, counselors may coach a client and model effective ways to be implicitly out without explicitly disclosing one's sexual orientation.
Some have argued that boys deserve parallel opportunities to observe their parents at work. Few of us live in a rural society where families work in the fields together and barter livestock for services.
But no groundbreaking work was being produced during that period - apart, obviously, from that of Claude Levi-Strauss, who was at work on The Savage Mind.
Results revealed the challenges communicators face at work, the greatest of which is productivity, or more precisely, increasing theirs to meet the escalating demands of their employers.
For persons with disabilities who may be unable to access existing supports at work and in the community, recent literature suggesting strategies for developing these supports is relevant (e.g., Hagner et al., 1992; Nisbet & Hagner, 1988).
In addition to valuable insight, the treatment team will be needed to provide support to the consumer around work issues even when the consumer is not at work. Coordination is essential for someone maintaining employment because an integrated work environment is often less tolerant of certain behaviors than other environments.
However, as they undermined company authority and sought to overcome alienation at work by asserting an aggressive masculinity, miners also came into conflict with the strict moral codes that formed an important part of the ideology of the left and organized labor.
People with psychiatric disabilities did poorer than workers with physical disabilities or mental retardation--they earned less money, had more behavioral difficulties at work, and had lower job satisfaction (Whitehead, 1977; Ciardiello, 1981; Olshansky & Beach, 1974; 1975).
Informal social behavior at work is not evenly distributed across a work day.
In this new regime children could only lawfully be "in school" or "at work." Every alternative in between was illegitimate and testified to the official contention that parents, either in ignorance or selfish defiance, did not observe the necessity of supervising their children and structuring their time.
Half of those who experience lost time following the onset or worsening of disability while at work will drop out of the workforce permanently if they do not return within 5 months (Carbine et al., 1989).
At the same time, African-Americans had, since slavery, protested racial inequality and resisted onerous white labor demands through indifference and fatalism at work that overseers chose to (mis)interpret as "natural laziness."(54) Numerous observers of Black industrial labor in the 1920s noted that employer dissatisfaction with "colored labor" was positively correlated with racial discrimination and resulting Black alienation in particular firms and plants.(55)