Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Involving great effort and hardship; arduous, strenuous: Describes work, tasks, or processes that require significant physical or mental exertion and are difficult to endure.
   • Painstaking, laborious: Characterizes an action done with or requiring a lot of careful, diligent, and hard work.

2. Noun:

   • Hard work, strenuous effort, toil: Refers to the act of exerting oneself greatly, often under difficult conditions.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:

  • Đây là một công việc khổ lực. (This is an arduous job.)
  • Quá trình học tập khổ lực cuối cùng cũng mang lại kết quả. (The painstaking learning process finally yielded results.)

• Noun:

  • Sự thành công của anh ấy là nhờ vào khổ lực. (His success is thanks to hard work.)
  • Họ đã bỏ ra nhiều khổ lực để xây dựng ngôi nhà. (They put in a lot of strenuous effort to build the house.)

Advanced Usage

• "khổ lực lắm mới...": It was only with great difficulty that... / Managed to... only after much effort.
  • Tôi khổ lực lắm mới hoàn thành bài báo cáo. (I managed to finish the report only after much effort.)

Variants and Related Words

• Khổ (adj/n): Suffering, hardship, bitter. A root word denoting difficulty or pain.

  • cuộc sống khổ cực (a life of hardship)

• Cực khổ (adj): Miserable, arduous, full of hardship. A synonym with a stronger emphasis on suffering.

  • công việc cực khổ (miserably hard work)

• Khó nhọc (adj): Difficult and tiring. A close synonym.

  • một hành trình khó nhọc (a difficult and tiring journey)

Synonyms

• Vất vả (adj): Hard, tough, laborious. A very common synonym.
• Gian khổ (adj): Full of trials and tribulations; arduous. Often used for historically difficult struggles.
• Nhọc nhằn (adj): Wearying, toilsome.

Related Phrases

• Khổ luyện (v): To train/practice assiduously and with great hardship.

  • Vận động viên khổ luyện mỗi ngày. (The athlete trains assiduously every day.)

• Khổ công (n): Painstaking effort, great pains taken.

  • anh ấy khổ công chăm sóc khu vườn (he took great pains to care for the garden)