sweat of one's brow
1
5.8
- idiom
- Literature
:
sudor de la frente
- This song clearly expresses the notion that money does not grow on trees, but rather is the fruit of labor, a reference buttressed by the Biblical myth of the expulsion from paradise when man needs to earn his bread "through the sweat of his brow."
Examples
-
Man was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.
Academic text (1992) -
The honest sweat of one's brow.
Fiction book (1998) -
Man shall live by the sweat of his brow.
Blog text (3) -
Free to rejoin the world of decent, ordinary men and women... ...who are content to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brows.
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All of this is to take place in the context of family life where one earns a living by the sweat of one's brow and distributes his or her earnings throughout the community.
Blog text (1) -
He built his successful business through the sweat of his brow, working long hours each day.
-
Farmers understand that their livelihood comes from the sweat of their brows as they toil in the fields.
-
She often reminds her children that nothing worthwhile comes without the sweat of one's brow.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Effort people use to do a job or task
405
1.1
A notable achievement done with a lot of hard work
355
1.6
A lot of steady effort to achieve something difficult
41
2.3
Hard work that needs a lot of effort
Antonyms
How Hard
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase directly combines 'sweat' (perspiration/effort) with 'brow' (forehead), creating a clear mental image of sweating from hard physical work; a learner who knows the constituents can readily infer it denotes effort or toil. This bodily-effort mapping is common across languages and not idiomatically arbitrary, so it is likely transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Sweat of one's brow comes from the image of a person working so hard that sweat runs down the brow, the forehead. That's why it means 'hard work' or working to 'earn a living'.