laboring oar
- noun
- /ˈleɪbərɪŋ ɔr/
- Archaic
:
el que más trabaja
- The laboring oars in the team often feel unappreciated.
Examples
-
After the team leader left, Tom became the laboring oar on the project.
-
If you take a break, I'll have to be the laboring oar for a while.
-
She often finds herself as the laboring oar in her volunteer group.
-
In our project, Sarah was the laboring oar who did all the heavy lifting.
-
The team succeeded because one member contributed significantly more; he was always the one with the laboring oar.
-
In this project, Sarah really held the laboring oar, putting in extra hours to ensure everything was completed on time.
-
During the community cleanup, John took on the laboring oar by organizing the volunteers and carrying heavy bags of trash.
Antonyms
How Hardworking
12
3.5
7
8.1
- Archaic
136
3.6
295
2.4
84
3.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'laboring' (doing strenuous work) and 'oar' (a rowing implement) give a clear metaphorical image of someone doing the heavy work—so there is an interpretable link between parts and the target meaning. However, the expression relies on metonymy/metaphor (the oar standing for the person who rows) and is somewhat idiomatic/archaic, so a B1 learner who knows the words may not reliably infer that it refers to the person bearing the heaviest burden rather than a literal oar.
Etymology
Laboring oar may come from people in a rowing boat: an oar is a long paddle, and the rower who pulled hardest was called the laboring oar. That's why it now means 'the person who does the most work' in a group.