works

Related to works: Microsoft Works, Works cited

the works

1. The entirety of what's available; all the related elements of something. Wow, they really offer the works at this ice cream bar. There's much more than just whipped cream and sprinkles here! I want a traditional wedding, with the cake, the dress—the works.
2. slang A very thorough or severe beating. When John refused to pay protection money to the mafia, two of their goons took him outside and gave him the works.
See also: work

work (someone or something)

1. informal To manipulate or exploit someone or something to one's own advantage. I learned from a young age how to work the system to suit my needs. He's been working the boss for months in order to gain access to the financial records.
2. informal To arouse, gratify, or enchant someone, especially a group, in an artful manner meant to influence them in a particular way. As a comedian, you have to know how to work the audience, no matter what they're like. My daughter knows how cute she is, and she is now a master at working the people around her for attention.
See also: work
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*works

a lot of something; everything possible. (The works can be a lot of food, good treatment, bad treatment, etc. *Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) Bill: Shall we order a snack or a big meal? Jane: I'm hungry. Let's get the works. But, your honor. I shouldn't get the works. I only drove too fast!
See also: work
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • the works
  • whole nine yards
  • whole nine yards, the
  • the whole nine yards
  • go the whole nine yards
  • the whole jimbang
  • the whole jingbang
  • the whole shooting match
  • the whole megillah
  • Megillah
References in classic literature
"The Works and Days": The poem consists of four main sections.
Of the Hesiodic poems similar in character to the "Works and Days", only the scantiest fragments survive.
Collection Of Hesiod Homer and Homerica
This kind of work required on the part of the workmen extreme nicety and minute attention.
President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly congratulated their engineer Murchison; the cyclopean work had been accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.
From The Earth To The Moon
It was a summer of prosperity, all over the country, and the country ate generously of packing house products, and there was plenty of work for all the family, in spite of the packers' efforts to keep a superfluity of labor.
The people who worked here followed the ancient custom of nature, whereby the ptarmigan is the color of dead leaves in the fall and of snow in the winter, and the chameleon, who is black when he lies upon a stump and turns green when he moves to a leaf.
Jungle
"I take it as proof that Berkeley's metaphysics did not work, because--" Ernest paused calmly for a moment.
The Iron Heel
About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed mightily delighted.
Fairy Tales
The speed with which Joe worked won Martin's admiration.
Martin Eden
In parts, only little bits, in other parts, large portions of a rhombic plate had been left between the opposed basins, but the work, from the unnatural state of things, had not been neatly performed.
The Origin of Species
Her eyes told her that her own work was the neatest in the shop, and she also saw that she did more than any other girl employed by the same person.
Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief
Dog-Tooth had a big canoe made, and, many more men he took from work, who did nothing and lay in the sun, save only when Dog-Tooth went in the canoe, when they paddled for him.
The Strength of the Strong
But however fast they worked, they did not spoil the grass, and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly.
Anna Karenina
To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance--that is one thing.
Up From Slavery
I knew of no horse in the city of Oakland that worked the hours I worked.
John Barleycorn