Definition

1. Noun:

   • A person who does hard, menial, or dull work: A "drudge" is someone who performs tedious, uninteresting, or physically demanding tasks, often for long hours and with little recognition or reward.
   • A person who works very hard, especially at boring tasks: This meaning emphasizes the laborious and often monotonous nature of the work.

2. Verb (intransitive):

   • To do hard, menial, or dull work: To "drudge" means to toil or labor persistently at tedious, difficult, or unpleasant tasks.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:

  • He felt like a mere drudge in the vast office, filing papers all day.
  • The kitchen drudge was up before dawn to light the fires and start the cleaning.

• Verb:

  • She had to drudge through hundreds of pages of legal documents.
  • For years, he drudged in the factory without hope of promotion.

Advanced Usage

• "To drudge away (at something)": To work persistently and laboriously on a task.
  • He was drudging away at his thesis every night for months.

Variants and Related Words

• Drudgery (noun): Hard, menial, or dull work.
  • The job involved endless drudgery.
• Drudging (adjective): Characterized by or involving drudgery.
  • He escaped his drudging routine with a weekend trip.

Synonyms

• Noun: Menial, laborer, toiler, slave, workhorse, grunt.
• Verb: Toil, labor, grind, slog, plod.

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Drudge away: To work hard and continuously at something tedious (often followed by "at").
  • She drudged away at the accounts until they were perfect.

Related Idioms

• No specific idiom is centered solely on the word "drudge." The concept is often expressed in phrases like "a life of drudgery" or "to be stuck in a drudge's job."

Noun

1. a laborer who is obliged to do menial work
2. one who works hard at boring tasks

Verb

1. work hard
   • She was digging away at her math homework
   • Lexicographers drudge all day long