"make quick work of" meaning in English

See make quick work of in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-make quick work of.ogg [Australia] Forms: makes quick work of [present, singular, third-person], making quick work of [participle, present], made quick work of [participle, past], made quick work of [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|make<,,made> quick work of}} make quick work of (third-person singular simple present makes quick work of, present participle making quick work of, simple past and past participle made quick work of)
  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To accomplish a specified task easily and quickly. Tags: idiomatic, transitive
    Sense id: en-make_quick_work_of-en-verb-oEmdp5XZ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 58 42
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To kill a specified person easily and quickly. Tags: idiomatic, transitive
    Sense id: en-make_quick_work_of-en-verb--Sngbvhc
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: make short work of Related terms: make light work of

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for make quick work of meaning in English (2.1kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "make<,,made> quick work of"
      },
      "expansion": "make quick work of (third-person singular simple present makes quick work of, present participle making quick work of, simple past and past participle made quick work of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50",
      "word": "make light work of"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "58 42",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The cupbearers made quick work of the after-dinner cleanup chores.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To accomplish a specified task easily and quickly."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_quick_work_of-en-verb-oEmdp5XZ",
      "links": [
        [
          "accomplish",
          "accomplish"
        ],
        [
          "task",
          "task"
        ],
        [
          "easily",
          "easily"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To accomplish a specified task easily and quickly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The spiders made quick work of the human soldiers.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To kill a specified person easily and quickly."
      ],
      "id": "en-make_quick_work_of-en-verb--Sngbvhc",
      "links": [
        [
          "kill",
          "kill"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To kill a specified person easily and quickly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-make quick work of.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5b/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50",
      "word": "make short work of"
    }
  ],
  "word": "make quick work of"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "makes quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "making quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "made quick work of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "make<,,made> quick work of"
      },
      "expansion": "make quick work of (third-person singular simple present makes quick work of, present participle making quick work of, simple past and past participle made quick work of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "make light work of"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The cupbearers made quick work of the after-dinner cleanup chores.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To accomplish a specified task easily and quickly."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "accomplish",
          "accomplish"
        ],
        [
          "task",
          "task"
        ],
        [
          "easily",
          "easily"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To accomplish a specified task easily and quickly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English transitive verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The spiders made quick work of the human soldiers.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To kill a specified person easily and quickly."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "kill",
          "kill"
        ],
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, transitive) To kill a specified person easily and quickly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-make quick work of.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5b/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/En-au-make_quick_work_of.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "make short work of"
    }
  ],
  "word": "make quick work of"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.