nonworking

[ non-wur-king ]

adjective
  1. not employed for a salary, fees, or wages; not producing or generating income: Our employee medical plan also covers nonworking spouses.

  2. not involved in or deriving from labor; not engaged in or directed toward work, especially as an employee: What are some of your nonworking activities?

  1. not functioning or operating: a nonworking coffee grinder.

Origin of nonworking

1
First recorded in 1850–55; non- + working

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use nonworking in a sentence

  • Malmesbury has described this circle of friends as a non-working, pleasure-loving body.

    Rowlandson's Oxford | A. Hamilton Gibbs
  • There were 44 working weeks in a year and, consequently, a total of holidays and non-working times of eight weeks.

    Life in a Medival City | Edwin Benson
  • As the soil of the world is required for increasing population, the non-working people must go.

  • The idle, 'dilettante', non-working, aristocratic dog they have no use for.

    Three Elephant Power | Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

British Dictionary definitions for nonworking

nonworking

/ (nɒnˈwɜːkɪŋ) /


adjective
  1. not engaged in payed employment: nonworking mothers

  2. (of machinery, technology, etc) not operating properly or effectively: nonworking telephones

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012