means The craft of shaping metal — by hammering, casting, cutting, welding, or forging — into tools, weapons, jewelry, or structures.

from A plain English compound of "metal" and "work." "Metal" came through Old French from Latin "metallum" (a mine or quarry, and the ore dug from it), itself borrowed from Greek "metallon." "Work" is solidly Germanic, traceable to Old English "weorc" and a Proto-Germanic root for labor and deeds — a cousin of Greek "ergon," the same root hiding inside "energy" and "organ." So the word is exactly what it claims: labor performed upon mined stuff, a partnership between a Mediterranean mine and a Germanic sweat.