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- set to work
set to work
set someone or something to work
to start someone or something working; to cause someone or something to begin functioning. The captain set everyone to work repairing the tears in the fabric of the sails. We will set the machines to work at the regular time.
set to work (on someone or something)
to begin working on someone or something. We have finished questioning Tom, so we will set to work on Fred. We set to work on dinner at noon.
set to work
to begin doing something They set to work bringing order to an organization that didn't even know how many computers it had. She pulled out her brushes and paper and set to work making a studio out of her hotel room.