Critical sociologists and critical management scholars often condemn today’s organization of work and managerial technics. If this organization is actually problematic, this paper aims at looking further in the past, and to offer an etymological exploration of the word ‘work’. Although etymology is not an end in itself, it allows identifying semantic roots of words and better understanding the foundations upon which they infuse social practices and concepts. Indeed, the multiple manners in which social and organizational phenomena are experienced – and though of – cannot be disconnected to these roots.

This present research focuses on the etymological roots of the word ‘work’ in a European anchoring. This in no way states that other languages have nothing to teach us about the notion. Yet, considering the centrality of the West in both industrial revolutions and how it has imposed its rationality through globalization on work relations, it is safe to say that these roots are a strong starting point to untangle the many perspectives surrounding the notion of work in modern societies. As we will see, these roots are far from neutral and provide a rich account to the diverse, if not oppositional – and even contentious – views on what working means.

When roots bear their marks

The etymology of the word ‘work’ in Europe is threefold:

One word, three trails:
Work (English) Werk (Dutch)	Arbeiten (German) Abeid (Norwegian)	Labour (English) Labeur  (French)	Lavorare (Italian)	Travail (French) Trabajo (Spanish)	Trabalho (Portuguese)
Ergon Greek		Laborare Latin		Tripalium Latin

 

• A factual linguistic trail: laborare

The English words ‘work’ and ‘labour’, along with the French one ‘labeur’, all come from the Latin verb laborare, which means: cultivate, administer in order to highlight, enhance what one realizes or produces. For example, it can be seen in Cicero (Verr, 3:121): “aratores sibi laborant”, farmers work for themselves. It encompasses the idea of making an effort to achieve something. Consequently, pain is always somehow connected: “labor, est function quaedam vel animi, vel corporis gravioris operis, et muneris”, labour is the performance of a relatively hard compulsory work by the mind or the body (Cicero, Tusculanes, II: XV). Yet, if the notion of preoccupation and effort it always present, it is oriented toward the production of a valued outcome. As Virgil (Aeneid, 640) says: “arte laboratae vestes”, fabrics that are artistically produced. Work is a valued accomplishment, something that one can take pride of.

Although this etymological root is fairly factual (‘laborare’ is literally translated as ‘work’), it carries the idea of valued production. This positive connotation can also be found in the Greek origin.

 

• A noble linguistic trail: εργον

The words ‘work’ finds its roots in ancient Greek, along with ‘werk’, ‘arbeiten’ and ‘arbeid’. Their etymology lies in the notion of ‘εργον’, which the outcome of a worker who accomplishes something. It is a piece of work in the sense of material or intellectual production that carries out an inner desire, a purpose. Close to the Latin ‘laborare’, this root of ‘work’ is seen as an accomplishment, the noble realization of human activities. If effort can be found in the context of the tasks, the εργον is always positively connoted: “κωμῳδοδιδασκαλίαν εἶναι χαλεπώτατον ἔργον ἁπάντων”, the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all (Aristophanes, Knights: 515).

It is linked to the proto-Indo-European root ‘werg’, which relates to doing and making. Fundamentally relating to the idea of action, it is connected to the Sanskrit words ‘karmin’ (“to be occupied, to be working”) and the famous ‘karma’: action, piece of work or will. Today, traces can still be found in the official unit of physical measure for action: the ‘erg’ (1 erg = 10^‐7 joule). It is also visible in the science studying work: ergonomic.

Although fundamentally positive, this root (along with the Latin “laborare”) is put in tension with the darker origin of the word in French, Spanish and Portuguese…

 

• A dark linguistic trail: tripalium

Many Mediterranean words for work relate to a darker origin. In ancient Rome, a tripalium was first a tripod tool (tri – palu) for blacksmiths, allowing them to immobilise cattle and horses in order to examine and work on them. This device is still called ‘travail’ in French today but is only used for fiery or recalcitrant animals. As we can see here, the tripalium is a way to restrain, to limit the ability to move both for the good of the animal (maintenance and care) and for the comfort of the master (immobility and docility). It is fundamentally a mean for impediment. The same device was also used to punish slaves who refused to obey orders and attempted to escape. This is today’s classic etymology presented: tripalium, instrument of torture (Bloch & von Wartburg, 2002). Although this definition is partial, its punitive use will last for a long time since I found it mentioned the Auxerre Council in 578 that forbids priests and deacons to be present when torture is performed on guilty people: “Non licet prefsbytero nec Diacono, as Trepalium, unbi rei torquetur, stare”.

The words travail (French), trabajo (Spanish), trabalho (Portuguese) and treball (Catalan) all carry this darker root. Consequently, work is also tainted with suffering and constraint, especially considering the following trail.

 

• A punitive mythological trail: the original sin

In looking for the origin of words, simply tracing their form is not the end. Once these trails are followed, the meaning of words is anchored in their socio-historical context. In the case of work, Judaeo-Christianity has deeply influenced how social working practices were considered in society. Through its mythology, the Ancient Testament heavily anchors the idea of work.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are said not to have to de any work to sustain themselves. God had created a world in which they had “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth” (Genesis, 1:26). Moreover, they were granted to “freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis, 2:15). Life in the Garden of Eden thus appeared to be work-free, neither Adam nor Eve had to go through anything to provide for themselves.

When Adam and Eve committed the original sin, God cursed them “among all animals and among all wild creatures” (Genesis, 3: 14). To Eve, God said: “in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis, 3: 16). In French hospitals, the allocated room for delivery is called ‘salle de travail’; and in English, women go to that room when they are ‘in labour’. But what about men? Adam was condemned to cultivate “by the sweat of (his) face” (Genesis, 3: 17) the ground that was then cursed. Consequently, for Adam, being cast away from the Garden of Eden was the beginning of the need for work.

This original condemnation structures the Judeao-Christian rationality in terms of guilt and repentance. Although one should not overestimate the strict interpretation, adhesion and application of the divine Word, its influence cannot be simply dismissed. It is striking to see how work is considered in this mythology: a painful sanction through which one can find redemption.

Two entangled streams

Work is not only related to its Latin roots that is often put forward. It cannot be reduced to a simple constraint (punitive or curative), it is also an achievement, a voluntary and potentially noble production. Consequently, the etymology founds a word on a ground that is both ambiguous and ambivalent, made of fault, guilt, redemption, sanction, absolution, enslavement, pride and personal development. Two streams are entangled all along history constituting a ‘work’ that slowly becomes central in western societies. Although these streams can be analytically untangled, it would be absurd to deny the existence of one or the other. Beyond social practices and organizations of work that are obviously essential, the word itself is rooted in legacies that fundamentally entangle two streams: alienation and achievement.

Following its Latin and Judaeo-Christian roots, work is experienced, seen and though of as a constraint, a painful punishment. It is an alienation exerted by a dominating power upon those who have to work; the role will belong to the capitalist bourgeoisie in the 19^th century. This idea is central to Marx’s Manuscripts of 1844 in which he denounces the alienating separation of men and the product of their work. This will strongly inspire Debord (1967) in his Society of the spectacle and Ellul (1973) in the New Demons. Work as a painful obligation becomes a constraint in which the one who works loses his or her freedom by selling his or her productive force. Arendt (1983) will soften this critic by recognizing that work has a function in the “process of vital fertility”; yet, she distinguishes it from labour (another etymological root is found here), which lasts and from action which creates and reveals one’s freedom.

Alongside this alienation, legacies of ergon and laborare shed a realizing and productive light upon work of which workers can be proud. Through work, men and women shape their environments, transform and cultivate them to obtain what they need and desire. In working, there is also the realization of a powerful will. This positive dimension can be found in the last pages of Voltaire (1759) Candid: work is what prevents the old Turkish from three majors evils, “boredom, vice and need”. Thus, the human dimension of labour is ennobled: “We shall now cultivate our garden”. Beyond effort and pain, obviously always present, work is seen and experienced as a human power allowing men to create value (Smith, 1776). It is what separate mankind from animals since men were able to shape and domesticate their environments.

It is from the confrontation of these two apparently contradictory perspectives that the notions of work and labour emerge, unfold and evolve in modern societies. Between divine sanction and social achievement, work oscillates. It is both noble in creation and painful in effort. To account for work in organizations, the two streams are necessary in order to build a rich accurate (and fair) representation. One should not take this approach as a denial of history, social relations or legal systems in the social organization of work and its theorizations. It is rather a proposal to explore work through an etymological lens to account with richness and deepness for the daily experiences of workers.