"work one's way up" meaning in English

See work one's way up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: works one's way up [present, singular, third-person], working one's way up [participle, present], worked one's way up [participle, past], worked one's way up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} work one's way up (third-person singular simple present works one's way up, present participle working one's way up, simple past and past participle worked one's way up)
  1. to climb something
    Sense id: en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-TWS9-kVn
  2. to climb the figurative corporate ladder Related terms: rise through the ranks
    Sense id: en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-QGG7N2DB Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 81 1 7
  3. to rise within a hierarchical order
    Sense id: en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-7Ztx3lSN
  4. to reach higher positions through effort after starting at lower levels or the very bottom
    Sense id: en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-FJqixVS4

Download JSON data for work one's way up meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "works one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "working one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "work one's way up (third-person singular simple present works one's way up, present participle working one's way up, simple past and past participle worked one's way up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "to climb something"
      ],
      "id": "en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-TWS9-kVn",
      "links": [
        [
          "climb",
          "climb"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "11 81 1 7",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to climb the figurative corporate ladder"
      ],
      "id": "en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-QGG7N2DB",
      "links": [
        [
          "climb",
          "climb"
        ],
        [
          "corporate ladder",
          "corporate ladder"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "13 71 0 16",
          "word": "rise through the ranks"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "to rise within a hierarchical order"
      ],
      "id": "en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-7Ztx3lSN",
      "links": [
        [
          "rise",
          "rise"
        ],
        [
          "hierarchical",
          "hierarchical"
        ],
        [
          "order",
          "order"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He worked his way up from janitor to regional manager.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to reach higher positions through effort after starting at lower levels or the very bottom"
      ],
      "id": "en-work_one's_way_up-en-noun-FJqixVS4"
    }
  ],
  "word": "work one's way up"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "works one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "working one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "worked one's way up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "work one's way up (third-person singular simple present works one's way up, present participle working one's way up, simple past and past participle worked one's way up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "rise through the ranks"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "to climb something"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "climb",
          "climb"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "to climb the figurative corporate ladder"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "climb",
          "climb"
        ],
        [
          "corporate ladder",
          "corporate ladder"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "to rise within a hierarchical order"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "rise",
          "rise"
        ],
        [
          "hierarchical",
          "hierarchical"
        ],
        [
          "order",
          "order"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He worked his way up from janitor to regional manager.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to reach higher positions through effort after starting at lower levels or the very bottom"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "work one's way up"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.