working life

English

Noun

working life (plural working lives)

1. The period of one's life spent in employment, between leaving school and retirement.
   • 1942 March, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes”, in Railway Magazine, page 93:

     Some interesting facts have recently been made known by the L.N.E.R. concerning the 178-ton Garratt 2-8-0 + 0-8-2 engine No. 2395, which since construction in 1925 has spent the whole of its working life banking coal trains up the 3 miles of 1 in 40 between Wentworth junction and West Silkstone, on the Worsborough branch, near Barnsley.

   • 1942 September and October, Charles E. Lee, “The Stanhope & Tyne Railway: II–Self-Acting Inclines”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:

     To an exceptional degree the duties on these inclines have been passed on from father to son; many a boy has begun his working life in oiling the sheaves and, after passing through every grade, has reached the age of retirement in the responsible position of brakesman.

Related terms

• work life

Translations

period spent in employment

• Danish: arbejdsliv n
• Dutch: beroepsleven (nl) n
• Finnish: työelämä (fi)
• French: vie active (fr) f
• German: Arbeitsleben (de) n, Erwerbsleben n
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: arbeidsliv n

  Nynorsk: arbeidsliv n

• Polish: życie zawodowe n
• Swedish: arbetsliv (sv) n

References

• “working life”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.