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job

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /dʒɒb/, US /dʒɑːb/[1]

Etymology

The origin of job is uncertain.[2][3][4] It first appears in the phrase jobbe of worke (1557),[5] and Etymonline, Barnhart and MWU suggest it is a variant of gobbe (“lump, mass”) (see gob), perhaps through a sense “cartload”.[2][5][6] Hoad and Word Origins point to an obsolete job “piece, lump” (14th century) and “cartload” (16th century), itself of unknown origin.[7][8] The verb job “to jab, prod” (Late Middle English) is a separate word, apparently imitative,[9][10][11] and the name Job comes through Latin and Greek from Hebrew איוב (Iyyōbh).[12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of work, a task, in the phrase jobbe of worke (1557),[5][2] which suggests that job and work did not then mean the same thing.[8]

Semantic evolution

By the early 17th century job alone meant a piece of work (before 1627, in Middleton),[5] and by 1660, in Pepys, a piece of work done for pay or profit.[5][2] Johnson defined it as “a low mean lucrative busy affair” and “petty, piddling work”,[2] and the verb meant “to buy and sell as a broker” in the 1660s, “to deal in stocks” from 1721 and “to turn public service to private advantage” from 1732.[2] The general sense “an affair, a state of things” (a good job) is colloquial from about 1700,[2] and thieves' slang used job for a planned crime from 1722.[2] The sense “paid position, employment” was first American, from 1858.[5][2][7] Printers called miscellaneous small work, such as posters and handbills, job work from 1795.[2] Job lot (1832) keeps an obsolete sense “cartload, lump”.[2][7] Later compounds include job description (1920) and job security (1932),[2] and jobsworth, from “more than my job's worth”, was popularized by the BBC series That's Life (1973–94).[8]

Timeline

  • 1557 – jobbe of worke, a piece of work.[5]
  • before 1627 – job alone, a piece of work (Middleton).[5]
  • 1660 – work done for pay or profit (Pepys).[5]
  • 1660s – verb, to buy and sell as a broker.[2]
  • 1694 – anything one has to do, a business or affair.[5]
  • c. 1700 – a state of things.[2]
  • 1721 – verb, to deal in stocks.[2]
  • 1722 – a planned crime (thieves' slang).[2]
  • 1732 – verb, to turn public service to private profit.[2]
  • 1795 – printers' job work.[2]
  • 1832 – job lot.[2]
  • 1858 – a paid position (American).[5][2]
  • 1882 – on the job.[2]
  • 1920 – job description.[2]
  • 1927 – an example or specimen (slang).[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A regular paid position; employment.
  2. A piece of work; a task.
  3. A duty or responsibility: it's your job to lock up.
  4. (informal) A difficult task: I had a job finding it.
  5. A state of affairs: it's a good job you came.
  6. (informal) A crime, especially a robbery.
  7. (informal) An example or specimen of something.
  8. (computing) A task or program run by a computer.

Verb

  1. To do odd jobs or piecework.
  2. To buy (goods) from makers and sell them to retailers; act as a middleman.
  3. To subcontract (work).
  4. To use (public office) dishonestly for private profit.
  • gob
  • jobber
  • jobbery
  • jab

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster