workmanship

Etymology

It is formed from English workman + -ship.^[2][3][4][5] In Middle English it was werkmanschipe,^[5][6] the form Gower uses once.^[7] The OED notes that some early forms apparently come from the plural of the noun with the same suffix.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The performance of work; labour, especially the labour spent on a particular task: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[2] Etymonline dates the word, in the sense "performance of labour", to the early 14th century,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1325–75.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, the labour put into a job, lasted into the early 19th century.^[4] From about 1400, in Langland, the word also meant the ability to work or act, or the working of something, a sense obsolete by 1755; between 1578 and 1695 it also meant the act of making or creating something.^[2] The sense that survives, the skill with which a task is done or a thing made, is recorded from 1412,^[2] and Etymonline dates the meaning "skill as a workman" to the late 14th century.^[3] From 1523 the word could also mean the thing produced, later mostly as a mass noun for the product of skilled labour,^[2] and by the 1520s it was used of the quality of a thing's construction.^[3] Johnson (1755) gave "manufacture; something made by any one" as the first sense, with a quotation from Spenser.^[8] In 1578 Banister used it once for the internal structure of the human body.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1393 – the performance of work; labour spent on a task.^[2]
• c. 1400 – the power to work or act; operation (obsolete by 1755).^[2]
• 1412 – the skill with which a task is done or a thing made.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense to the late 14th century.^[3]
• 1523 – a thing produced by a workman or craftsman.^[2]
• 1578 – the act of making or creating (obsolete by 1695); also, once, the anatomy of the body.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The skill with which something is made or done, or the quality that this skill gives the finished thing: The old clock shows superb workmanship.^[9][5][2]
2. The art or skill of a workman; craftsmanship.^[9][5]
3. A thing made by skilled work; the product of a person's labour: The carved doors are the workmanship of a village joiner.^[9][5][2]

Related words

• work
• workman

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins