Wark

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Scottish and Northern English word for work, a task or a piece of labour ; to carry on labouring at a job or to toil at something
2. A Scots form meaning labour, employment or a particular job ; the act of working or applying effort to a task
3. Dialect term for a piece of toil or occupation ; a verb meaning to be busy at work or to labour steadily at something

Etymology: The word "wark" is a northern and Scots form of "work," and its older sense is startling: it originally meant pain or suffering, not labour. The Old English "wærc" and "wræc" meant "pain, suffering, anguish," and the same root gives modern Swedish "värk" and Icelandic "verkur," both still meaning an ache. Only later did the sense shift toward effort and toil, the kind of pain a body endures through hard exertion. The dialect form itself came from the Middle English "werk" and "warch," the ordinary English spelling of the same word. Northern and Scots speakers kept the "a" vowel, so "wark" survived in places where southern English moved to "work." The verb has the same story. The Old English "wærcan" meant "to be in pain," and Middle English "werken" and "warchen" carried that sense before it broadened into the general action of working.