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Glite Dictionary
hard yakka

hard yakka

1 9.8
Very hard physical or mental work that needs a lot of effort
  • noun
  • Australian
translation icon : trabajo duro
  • After a week of hard yakka in the fields, they were exhausted but satisfied.

Examples

  • Gardening can be hard yakka, especially when the soil is rocky.

  • It's hard yakka, digging foundations.

    They're a Weird Mob (1966)

  • I would, along the way, simply get stuck in and do some practical work, and I would alternate between hard yakka and planning, since these are interdependent—the ease or difficulty of a given task will always feed back into the planning of that task, necessitating revision.

    Blog text (8)

  • Building the house took a lot of hard yakka over several months.

Synonyms

hard work
vshard yakka
355 1.6

A lot of steady effort to achieve something difficult

focuses specifically on strenuous physical labor rather than general effort
yakka
vshard yakka
  • Australian
1 9.9

Hard physical work often done by hand

is the same meaning expressed using a different word form

How Hard

arduous
29 7.7
hard yakka
  • Australian
1 9.8
light work
  • Informal
3 1.0

Surface Forms

hard yakka singular
hard yakkas plural

Morphology

hard + yakka

The meaning 'hard work' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'hard' (difficult/strenuous) with 'yakka' (work), following a simple adjective + noun compositional pattern. Although 'yakka' is regional slang, the semantic relation is literal and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Hard yakka probably comes from an Aboriginal word yakka meaning 'work', which early settlers heard and used with the English word hard. That's why hard yakka means 'hard work' today.