workmanship
Americannoun
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the art or skill of a workman or workwoman.
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the quality or mode of execution, as of a thing made.
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the product or result of labor and skill; work executed.
noun
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the art or skill of a workman
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the art or skill with which something is made or executed
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the degree of art or skill exhibited in the finished product
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the piece of work so produced
Etymology
Origin of workmanship
First recorded in 1325–75, workmanship is from the Middle English word werkmanschipe. See workman, -ship
Explanation
The noun workmanship can describe the hard work and skill that go into making something or working at a task — and it can also describe a quality of a handmade object that is skillfully crafted. You show workmanship when you labor carefully over a project, and the beautiful hooked rug you create also shows workmanship. If your shop teacher admires the workmanship of your wooden footstool, she is complimenting the quality of your work. The fourteenth century meaning of workmanship was simply "laboring," and later it came to include the idea of "skill in work."
Vocabulary lists containing workmanship
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ship
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The Door in the Wall
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-ship
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To call this the rough-and-ready style of a workshop would not do as an excuse: A workshop requires workmanship.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
That included blame for issues ranging from pricing to workmanship — even when Fanatics wasn’t the cause.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 22, 2026
Such designs required careful planning, skilled workmanship, and an understanding of how tool performance could be improved by combining materials.
From Science Daily • Jan. 31, 2026
He is not entitled to be repaid for shoddy workmanship.
From MarketWatch • Oct. 18, 2025
Actually, I was much less struck by the satiric implications of the picture than I was by the quality of workmanship that had gone into it.
From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
