The kanji 働 primarily conveys the meaning of "to work," "to labor," or "to function." It refers to the act of exerting physical or mental effort to achieve a goal, produce something, or earn a living. It encompasses various forms of activity, from manual labor to professional employment, and even the functioning of machines or systems.

・On-yomi (音読み): ・ドウ (dō) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): ・はたら（く） (hatara(ku))

⚫︎働く Translation: To work ⚫︎労働 Translation: Labor, work ⚫︎共働き Translation: Dual income (family)

The kanji 働 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), a phono-semantic compound character. The left side, 亻 (にんべん - ninben), is a component of the character and represents "human" or "person." The right side, 動 (dō), provides the phonetic element and also relates to the meaning of "motion" or "movement." Therefore, the character 働 suggests the idea of a person (亻) performing an action or making a movement (動), thus "to work" or "to labor."