outwork

From out- + work.

• (Received Pronunciation)
  • (verb): enPR: out-wûkʹ, IPA^(key): /aʊtˈwɜːk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • (noun): enPR: outʹwûk, IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtwɜːk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American)
  • (verb): enPR: out-wûrkʹ, IPA^(key): /aʊtˈwɝk/
  • (noun): enPR: outʹwûrk, IPA^(key): /ˈaʊtwɝk/

outwork (third-person singular simple present outworks, present participle outworking, simple past and past participle outworked)

2. (transitive) To work more, faster, or harder than (someone else).

   Hypernym: outdo

   A few may be able to outsmart him, but no one can outwork him.

   • 2009, Bill Boggs, Got What It Takes?:

     And I am one of those people who is indefatigable, in the true sense that I beg someone to find someone who can outwork me.

3. (rare, obsolete) To work out to a finish; to complete.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     For now three dayes of men were full outwrought, / Since he this hardie enterprize began [...].

outwork (countable and uncountable, plural outworks)

2. (architecture, countable) A minor, subsidiary fortification built beyond the main limits of fortification.

   Coordinate term: fieldwork

   Beyond the castle, scattered outworks offered some protection for the farther-flung peasants.

4. Agricultural work done outdoors in the fields.

   Synonym: fieldwork

• work out, workout