to slave
- verb
- /sleɪv/
- As if you're some elf in a workshop slaving away to meet your kids' demands?
So the most profitable businesses take very little money and your time also isn't like you're not slaving away at the business.
- So the most profitable businesses take very little money and your time also isn't like you're not slaving away at the business.
Examples
-
I've been slaving over it for a year in my spare time.
-
I've been watching you, working day and night, slaving so hard you barely have time to catch your breath.
Fiction book (1996) -
You know, guys, I slaved in the kitchen for hours making you this food.
-
Right now I'm here slaving away at the house.
-
I've been slaving over this for hours!
-
All of his co-workers are slaving away on their keypads.
Fiction book (2002) -
My folks are retired now, without a cent, after slaving all their lives in the geranium fields of rich exporters.
Fiction book (2001) -
The idea of the unrecognized genius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously foolish one.
Fiction book (1996) -
I've been slaving away on this project all week to meet the deadline.
-
She was slaving in the garden, trying to get everything ready before the guests arrive.
Synonyms
To work hard on difficult physical tasks
Spend a lot of time doing hard, tiring tasks
To work very hard at something until you are very tired
Doing hard physical work
Antonyms
Idioms
- Informal
A person who always follows the newest clothes styles, even when it costs money or comfort
Compounds
- NSFW
Buying, selling, and moving people to force them to work, often from Africa to the Americas
- NSFW
Someone who keeps another person as property and forces them to work for no pay
- NSFW
A ship that carried people taken from their homelands to be forced to work across the Atlantic in the past
- NSFW
A southern United States state where the law allowed people to own other people before the American Civil War
- Offensive
A person forced to row a ship as a slave, often meaning someone who does very hard work
A large lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada drained by the Mackenzie River
- Specialized
An ant that enters other ant nests and takes young ants to raise as workers
- Specialized
An ant that attacks other ant nests and takes their young to raise as workers in its own nest
- Specialized
An ant that another species takes as a baby and raises to work in its nest
- NSFW
The buying, selling, and moving of people to be forced to work, especially Africans taken to the Americas
How Hard
Surface Forms
Etymology
The verb slave comes from the noun slave, which long ago meant a person owned and forced to work. So to slave at something means to work very hard for a long time, often with little rest.