make short work of
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To finish or accomplish something quickly and easily
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Hoàn thành hoặc đạt được một việc gì đó nhanh chóng và dễ dàng
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: to make a short duration of work
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
He should make short work of his rivals in Ayr's opener (2.0).
Eve had made short work of anyone who took advantage of Benny's gentle ways.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “make short work of” mean?
To finish or accomplish something quickly and easily Literally: to make a short duration of work
Is “make short work of” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.