"workhorse" meaning in English

See workhorse in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-us-workhorse.ogg [US] Forms: workhorse [singular], workhorses [plural]
Head templates: {{noun}} [POS TABLE]
  1. A workhorse is a horse that is used for work for something.
    Sense id: simple-workhorse-en-noun-Ps4rvK2W
  2. If a person or thing is a workhorse, they do a lot of work over a long period of time.
    Sense id: simple-workhorse-en-noun-8AAVyDGJ
     
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "workhorse",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "workhorses",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A workhorse is a horse that is used for work for something."
      ],
      "id": "simple-workhorse-en-noun-Ps4rvK2W"
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Those old machines are not very glamorous, but even 20 years after their introduction, they are still the workhorses of the industry."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If a person or thing is a workhorse, they do a lot of work over a long period of time."
      ],
      "id": "simple-workhorse-en-noun-8AAVyDGJ",
      "raw_tags": [
        "by extension"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-workhorse.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "workhorse"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "workhorse",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "workhorses",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A workhorse is a horse that is used for work for something."
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Those old machines are not very glamorous, but even 20 years after their introduction, they are still the workhorses of the industry."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If a person or thing is a workhorse, they do a lot of work over a long period of time."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "by extension"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-us-workhorse.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "workhorse"
}

Download raw JSONL data for workhorse meaning in English (0.7kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-26 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (89e900c and ea19a0a). 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.