trabajaban

Trabajaban is a conjugated form of the Spanish verb trabajar, meaning "to work." It is the imperfect indicative tense in the third person plural, corresponding to "they were working" or "they used to work" in English. The form implies a past action that was habitual or ongoing at a past time, rather than a completed event.

Grammatical notes: The imperfect of -ar verbs like trabajar uses the endings -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban. Therefore, trabajaban corresponds to ellos, ellas, or ustedes in contexts where the subject is plural. In many dialects, ustedes is used as the plural subject, so the same form is used with ustedes.

Etymology: The Spanish verb trabajar derives from Latin tripaliare, related to a tripod or a device that historically signified hard labor. Over time, the word evolved in Spanish to mean general work or labor, yielding the modern verb trabajar and its related forms such as trabajo (work) and trabajador (worker).

Usage and nuance: Trabajaban is commonly used to describe routine or repeated actions in the past (ej.: “Antes, trabajaban en la fábrica todos los veranos.”) or to set a scene in the past (ej.: “Ellos trabajaban cuando llegó la noticia.”). It does not convey completion; for a completed past action, the preterite trabajado forms would be used in different contexts.

Related forms: Other tenses of trabajar include trabajaba, trabajas, trabajan, trabajarán, trabajaron, and participle trabajado. Related nouns include trabajo and trabajador; related verbs cover ideas of labor and employment.

See also: Spanish verb conjugation, imperfect tense, trabajo, trabajador.