backbreaking work
2
4.4
- noun
:
trabajo agotador
- Every year, thousands of workers endure the backbreaking work of harvesting fruits in the hot sun.
- doing backbreaking work
- years of backbreaking work
- dangerous and backbreaking work
Examples
-
He quickly gets a job in the depths of the mine, experiencing the backbreaking work of toiling hundreds of feet below the earth.
Blog text (12) -
It took Peary's men four summers of backbreaking work to excavate.
Academic text (1992) -
"Do you think it's fair that we should be doing this backbreaking work?
Fiction book (1999) -
Outside, it remained dangerous and backbreaking work.
Fiction book (2001) -
It is awful, backbreaking work, I know, but we are lucky to have it.
-
Americans enjoy much, not simply freedom from backbreaking work, and for the most part they are content with that bounty.
Academic text (2002) -
The other extreme, in this thought experiment, is an economy where absolutely everyone spends all waking hours engaged in backbreaking work.
Blog text (32) -
Surely he had thought her antics excessive and strange, for they had just completed a day of backbreaking work.
Fiction book (1997) -
Fish are pulled through the door onto the deck, sparing the men the backbreaking work of hauling large fish up and over the rail.
Fiction book (1999) -
I don't know how cane is grown or harvested, but I've heard it's backbreaking work.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
27
3.6
Hard work that needs a lot of physical effort or responsibility
18
3.3
Work done with your hands or body rather than by machines
A very hard job that makes your body very tired
Antonyms
How Strenuous
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'extremely strenuous labor' is directly and transparently derived from combining the adjective 'backbreaking' (involving intense physical labor) with 'work' (effort/activity); this is a straightforward adjective + noun composition. The metaphor in 'backbreaking' clearly signals severe effort and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
Backbreaking work may come from the strong image of carrying heavy loads that bend your back so much it feels like it is breaking. So, the phrase now means 'extremely hard, tiring work'.