Definition

Verb phrase: - To pull a plough: The literal meaning describes the action of dragging a plough, typically using animal power, to prepare land for cultivation. - To toil and moil, to work extremely hard: The figurative and primary meaning refers to laboring with great effort and hardship, often for meager reward or under difficult conditions, akin to the exhausting work of pulling a plough.

Usage Examples

• Literal (less common):

  • Trước đây, trâu bò phải kéo cầy trên những cánh đồng. (In the past, buffaloes and oxen had to pull a plough in the fields.)

• Figurative (common):

  • Ông ấy cả đời kéo cầy nuôi năm đứa con ăn học. (He toiled and moiled his whole life to raise and educate his five children.)
  • Công việc này vất vả như kéo cầy vậy. (This job is as hard as pulling a plough.)

Advanced Usage

• The phrase is almost always used to emphasize relentless, grueling physical labor or a life of hardship. It carries a connotation of exhaustion and little respite.
• It often appears in contexts describing the struggles of farmers, manual laborers, or parents sacrificing for their children.

Variants and Related Words

• Kéo cày trả nợ: A common extended phrase meaning "to toil and moil to pay off a debt." It intensifies the sense of being trapped in a cycle of hard labor for obligation.
  • Gia đình họ phải kéo cày trả nợ sau vụ mùa thất bát. (His family had to toil and moil to pay their debts after the crop failure.)

Synonyms

• Làm lụng vất vả: To work laboriously.
• Đầu tắt mặt tối: To be busy from dawn till dusk (literally: head extinguished, face dark).
• Bán mặt cho đất, bán lưng cho trời: An idiom describing farming hardship (literally: to sell one's face to the earth, sell one's back to the sky).

Related Idioms

• Kéo cày trả nợ: As mentioned above, this is the most closely related and frequently used idiom, directly incorporating the target phrase.
  • Cả đời kéo cày trả nợ, chẳng lúc nào được thảnh thơi. (A lifetime of toiling to pay debts, never a moment of leisure.)

1. Pull (haul) a plough
2. Toil and moil, work hard
   • Kéo cầy trả nợ
     To toil and moil to pay one's debt