Quicksort is a divide and conquer algorithm that works by partitioning an array around a pivot value and recursively sorting the subarrays. It has the following steps:
1. Pick a pivot element and partition the array into two halves based on element values relative to the pivot.
2. Recursively sort the two subarrays using quicksort.
3. The entire array is now sorted after sorting the subarrays.
The worst case occurs when the array is already sorted or reverse sorted, taking O(n^2) time due to linear-time partitioning at each step. The average and best cases take O(nlogn) time as the array is typically partitioned close to evenly.