This isn't the same as the unviolent "work", or if it is it's back in prehistory.Pokorny list two different roots: first, *
werg'-, (*
wreg'- 'to work, to do, maske'; *
werg'om, p.1168), whence English
work, Greek
(w)ergon. And second, *
wreg- (*
werg- 'to hit, strike, press, urge, thump, propel, impel', p.1181), whence Latin
urgeo, English
wreck,
wreak, and
irk (from Old Norse). Calvert Watkins, in the A-H IE roots appendix, suggests they are the same root, and that the second one is really a zero-grade of the first.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE577.html
