job
English Edit
Etymology Edit
From the phrase jobbe of work (“piece of work”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from a variant of Middle English gobbe (“mass, lump”); or perhaps related to Middle English jobben (“to jab, thrust, peck”), or Middle English choppe (“piece, bargain”). More at gob, jab, chop.
Folk etymology linked the word to Job, the biblical character who suffered many misfortunes; for semantic development of misery and labor, compare Vulgar Latin *tripaliāre (“torture”) and its Romance descendants like Spanish trabajar and French travailler (whence English travail).
Pronunciation Edit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: jŏb, IPA(key): /d͡ʒɒb/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) enPR: jŏb, IPA(key): /d͡ʒɑb/
Audio (UK) (file) Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɒb
Noun Edit
job (plural jobs)
- A task.
- I've got a job for you - could you wash the dishes?
- 1996, Cameron Crowe, Jerry Maguire:
- An economic role for which a person is paid.
- That surgeon has a great job.
- He's been out of a job since being made redundant in January.
- 1984, Johnny Marr & Morrissey (lyrics and music), “Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now”, in Hatful of Hollow, performed by The Smiths:
- I was looking for a job and then I found a job / And heaven knows I'm miserable now
- 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
- Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.
- 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
- Here I am at my new job!
Audio (US) (file)
- Here I am at my new job!
- (in noun compounds) Plastic surgery.
- He had a nose job.
- (in noun compounds) A sex act.
- (computing) A task, or series of tasks, carried out in batch mode (especially on a mainframe computer).
- (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:) A sudden thrust or stab; a jab.
- A public transaction done for private profit; something performed ostensibly as a part of official duty, but really for private gain; a corrupt official business.
- (informal) A robbery or heist.
- a bank job
- 2010, J. Lamar, Honor, Deception and Justice, page 53:
- This freak Vernon got the intelligence on the safe job and passed it on to some other freak, a guy that hears voices in his head and talks back to them. […] We don't think [Vernon's squeeze] is in on the heist, but she apparently is in love with this creep who is laying the pipe in her trough!
- Any affair or event which affects one, whether fortunately or unfortunately.
- (colloquial) A thing or whatsit (often used in a vague way to refer to something whose name one cannot recall).
- Pass me that little job with the screw thread on it.
- 1936, Proceedings of the annual meeting of the American Warehousemen's Association, volume 45, page 376:
- One of them was about nine years ago when I stood in white tie and tails beside a little blonde job (laughter and applause) down in front of the First Methodist Church of Birmingham, […]
- (UK, slang, law enforcement) The police as a profession, act of policing, or an individual police officer.[1]
- 2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 14:17 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by DS Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans):
- “He was ex-job, Beavis. Detective sergeant out of County, Banbury, retired in ‘59.”
- 2018 July 24, Chris Merritt, Last Witness:A Gripping Crime Thriller You Won’t Be Able To Put Down:
- But there it was on the screen: The personal details of his old colleague from Kennington station in the late nineties. […] She’s job. We used to work together.
- 2022 February 9, Daragh Carville, Richard Clark, Furquan Akhtar, 01:33 from the start, in The Bay, season 3, episode 5, spoken by D.S Jenn Townsend (Marsha Thomason):
- “I’m job, D.S Townsend. I have to report a missing person.”
Usage notes Edit
- Adjectives often applied to "job": easy, hard, poor, good, great, excellent, decent, low-paying, steady, stable, secure, challenging, demanding, rewarding, boring, thankless, stressful, horrible, lousy, satisfying, industrial, educational, academic.
Translations Edit
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Verb Edit
job (third-person singular simple present jobs, present participle jobbing, simple past and past participle jobbed)
- (intransitive) To do odd jobs or occasional work for hire.
- a. 1852, Thomas Moore, Literary Advertisement:
- Authors of all work, to job for the season.
- (intransitive) To work as a jobber.
- (intransitive, professional wrestling slang) To take the loss.
- (transitive, trading) To buy and sell for profit, as securities; to speculate in.
- (transitive, often with out) To subcontract a project or delivery in small portions to a number of contractors.
- We wanted to sell a turnkey plant, but they jobbed out the contract to small firms.
- (intransitive) To seek private gain under pretence of public service; to turn public matters to private advantage.
- 1733, Alexander Pope, Epistle to Bathurst:
- And judges job, and bishops bite the town.
- To strike or stab with a pointed instrument.
- 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
- a raven pitch'd upon him, and there sate, jobbing of the sore
- To thrust in, as a pointed instrument.
- 1677–1683, Joseph Moxon, “(please specify the page)”, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works, […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Joseph Moxon, published 1678–1683, →OCLC:
- And while the Tympan is coming , he slips his Left Hand Fingers from under the Frisket to the hither outer corner of it , as well to keep the Sheet close to the Tympan in its position , as to avoid the jobbing of the lower side of the Frisket against the small square shoulder
- To hire or let in periods of service.
- to job a carriage
- 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
- […] ...and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed, with which Jos drove about in state in the park...
Derived terms Edit
- 3D job
- bad job
- batch job
- black bag job
- blowjob, blow job
- blue job
- bob-a-job
- bob-job
- bodge job
- boob job
- botch job
- brown job
- cronjob
- day job
- desk job
- don't give up the day job, don't give up your day job, don't quit your day job
- do one's job
- do the job
- dump job
- fang job
- foot job
- get the job done
- give something up as a bad job
- good job
- great job
- hack job
- handjob, hand job
- hatchet job
- have a job to
- I'm looking for a job
- inside job
- job action
- job advertisement, job ad, job advert
- job aid
- job analysis
- job and finish
- job backwards
- jobber
- jobbie
- job center, job centre, Jobcentre
- Jobclub
- job creator
- jobday
- job description
- job fair
- jobforce, job force
- job-hop, job-hopper, job-hopping
- jobhour
- job-hunt, job hunting
- job interview
- job jar
- jobless
- joblife
- joblike
- job lot
- job market
- job master
- jobname
- job offer
- job of work
- job op
- job order
- job posting
- job printer
- job production
- job queue
- job rotation
- job's a good 'un
- job satisfaction
- job scheduler
- job searching
- job security
- jobseeker
- jobs for the boys
- job-sharing
- job shop
- jobsware
- jobsworth
- job title
- jobweek
- joe job, Joe job
- junk job
- just the job
- knob job
- lace job
- lawn job
- lie down on the job
- lifetime job
- little brown job
- lube job
- make the best of a bad job
- make-work job
- mouth job
- nose job, nose-job
- note job
- nut job
- odd job, odd-job
- office job
- on the job, on-the-job
- out of a job
- paint job
- proper job
- provisional job
- put-up job
- ream job
- rimjob, rim job, rim-job
- rush job, rush-job
- send a boy to do a man's job
- skin job
- snow job, snow-job
- summer job
- toe job
- tonguejob
- toss job
- troll job
- union job
- wet job
- whack job
- what is your job, what's your job
Translations Edit
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also Edit
References Edit
- ^ Eric Partridge (2013), “job”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume I–II, 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1274: “the job¶ the police (as a profession) UK”.
Anagrams Edit
Chinese Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job
- (Hong Kong Cantonese) job (a non-permanent job, from which one is paid); tasks in one's work (Classifier: 單/单 c; 個/个 c)
References Edit
Danish Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job n
Declension Edit
Dutch Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job f (plural jobs)
Usage notes Edit
Job is the default word for a job in Belgium. In the Netherlands baan is the default; however, job is sometimes used informally or in certain sectors (e.g. marketing), but it may also be considered pretentious due to an association with yuppies.
French Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job m or f (plural jobs)
Usage notes Edit
- This term is feminine in Quebec and some parts of Louisiana, and masculine elsewhere.
Synonyms Edit
- (informal) boulot
Further reading Edit
- “job”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Italian Edit
Etymology Edit
Noun Edit
job m (invariable)
- job (employment role, computing task)
Portuguese Edit
Etymology Edit
Unadapted borrowing from English job.
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job m (plural jobs)
Romanian Edit
Etymology Edit
Noun Edit
job n (plural joburi)
Declension Edit
Zaghawa Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
job
Further reading Edit
- Beria-English English-Beria Dictionary [provisional] ADESK, Iriba, Kobe Department, Chad