Meaning & use
admin work
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Meaning
noununcountableinformal
Routine office tasks such as answering email, filing papers, keeping records and arranging schedules.
Grammar: No plural or a: I have a lot of admin work, not many admin works.
Patterns
- do admin work
- admin work for someone
I spent the morning on admin work and answered forty emails.
She does admin work for the sales team two days a week.
Too much admin work leaves teachers less time to plan lessons.
Common combinations
- do admin work
- He does admin work at a small law firm.
- a lot of admin work
- Running a clinic involves a lot of admin work.
- boring admin work
- She dislikes the boring admin work in her job.
- part-time admin work
- He found part-time admin work near campus.
- catch up on admin work
- Friday afternoons are for catching up on admin work.
Synonyms and how they differ
- paperwork
- Paperwork stresses forms and documents, while admin work also includes emails and scheduling.
- clerical work
- Clerical work is more formal and refers to office jobs like filing and typing.
- office work
- Office work is any work done in an office, which is broader than admin work.
- bureaucracy
- Bureaucracy criticizes official rules and procedures, whereas admin work is a neutral description of routine tasks.
Word family
- admin noun
- informal short form of administration
- administration noun
- the running of an organization
- administrative adjective
- relating to running an organization
- administrator noun
- a person who manages or organizes
- administer verb
- to manage or give out
Commonly confused: admin work or manual work?
admin work vs manual work
Manual work is done with the hands and body, while admin work is office-based.
Practice
The nurse said she wished she had less ___ and more time with patients.
Choose one answer.
Admin work means routine office tasks such as records and emails that take time away from patients. Manual labor and handiwork are physical tasks, and homework is school work.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “admin work”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.