The building blocks of English

Affixes

-work

Things made of a specified material or in a particular way.

English work.

Some examples denote things or parts made of a specified material, with specified tools, or specified techniques: basketwork, beadwork, brickwork, needlework, fretwork, knotwork, paintwork, plasterwork, silverwork, wickerwork. Others mark a mechanism or structure of a specified kind: bridgework, clockwork. coachwork, earthwork, firework, latticework. Those words in which the focus of attention is on the activity of working are considered to be compounds of work instead: housework, homework, teamwork.