go to work

go to work

1. To go to one's place of employment for a day or shift of work. I'm afraid Sally's already gone to work—can I take a message? My husband is off for the holiday, but I have to go to work.
2. To begin to do something to someone or something. I watched as the seamstress went to work hemming my dress. Mom went to work cleaning and bandaging my scraped knee.
See also: go, work
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

go to work (on someone or something)

to begin working on someone or something. The masons went to work on repairing the wall. The surgeons went to work on the patient. Come on! Let's go to work!
See also: go, work
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

go/set to ˈwork (on something)

(also get (down) to ˈwork (on something)) start working on a particular task: I set to work on the car, giving it a good clean. I ought to get to work on that report.
See also: go, set, work
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • go/set to work
  • at work
  • off
  • offed
  • off from work
  • commute
  • commute (something) into (something)
  • commute into
  • off of work
  • chuck a sickie
References in classic literature
Few patriots can live so long without eating, and some of the applicants will be compelled to go to work in the meantime.
For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.
Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him.
They did not ask Martin to go to work, nor to cease writing.
So with this resolution I composed myself for a time, and resolved that I would go to work with all speed to build me a wall with piles and cables, &c., in a circle, as before, and set my tent up in it when it was finished; but that I would venture to stay where I was till it was finished, and fit to remove.
I'm going to some city and go to work. I'll tell mother about it tomorrow."
"I'm made to go to work. I may be able to make a place for myself by steady working, and I might as well be at it," he decided.
I don't know what I'll do, but I'm going to get out of here and go to work. I think I'll go to Columbus," he said.
They had been thinking of letting little Stanislovas go to work. Well, there was no need to worry, Grandmother Majauszkiene said--the law made no difference except that it forced people to lie about the ages of their children.
After she died the man would go to work all day and leave them to shift for themselves--the neighbors would help them now and then, for they would almost freeze to death.
In the morning, of course, most of them had to go to work, the packing houses would not stop for their sorrows; but by seven o'clock Ona and her stepmother were standing at the door of the office of the agent.
`If you go to work for the Cutters, you're likely to have a fling that you won't get up from in a hurry.'
If he wants to see any of my letters, he knows the right way to go to work. I wouldn't have him see one of these letters, written for circulation in the family, for anything in the world.
It didn't last long, only a few weeks, when I had to surrender and go to work. Yet I was unaware of any need for the drink anodyne.
Survey participants aged 45-54 claim that they never or rarely leave their AC on during the summer when they go away for the weekend (70 per cent), when they travel (67 per cent), when they go out socialising (62 per cent), when they go to work (61 per cent) and when they go shopping (56 per cent).