lao lực

Người nông dân lao lực trên cánh đồng lúa.

Definition

1. Verb:
   • To overwork, to work oneself to exhaustion: To engage in physical or mental labor to an excessive degree, often to the point of harming one's health or well-being. It implies strenuous effort beyond reasonable limits.

Usage

• This verb describes the action of working too hard. It is often used to express concern about someone's work habits or to describe the cause of fatigue or illness.
• It can be used reflexively (e.g., "lao lực quá" - to overwork oneself too much) or transitively to describe the act of overexerting one's body or mind.
• Common in contexts related to health, work-life balance, and warnings about the consequences of excessive labor.

Usage Examples

• Verb:
  • Anh ấy đã lao lực nhiều năm nên giờ sức khỏe suy kiệt. (He has overworked for many years, so now his health is deteriorating.)
  • Đừng có lao lực như vậy, hãy nghỉ ngơi đi. (Don't overwork yourself like that, please get some rest.)
  • Cô ấy lao lực để hoàn thành dự án đúng hạn. (She worked herself to the bone to complete the project on time.)

Advanced Usage

• "lao lực quá sức": to overexert oneself, to strain oneself beyond capacity.
  • Việc lao lực quá sức có thể dẫn đến kiệt sức. (Overexerting oneself can lead to burnout.)
• "sự lao lực" (noun form): the state or condition of overworking.
  • Sự lao lực triền miên khiến anh ta trông già đi trước tuổi. (The constant overwork made him look older than his age.)

Variants and Related Words

• Lao tâm (verb): To exert mental effort, to worry or strain one's mind. Often used in conjunction with "lao lực" as "lao tâm lao lực", meaning to exhaust oneself both mentally and physically.
  • Công việc này khiến tôi phải lao tâm lao lực. (This job makes me exhaust myself both mentally and physically.)
• Làm việc quá sức (verb phrase): To work beyond one's strength. A more common, direct synonym.
• Làm lụng vất vả (verb phrase): To labor hard, to toil. Emphasizes hardship and difficulty.

Synonyms

• Làm việc cật lực: to work strenuously, to work one's hardest.
• Làm việc nặng nhọc: to do heavy, arduous labor.
• Quá sức: to be overstrained, beyond one's capacity.

Related Idioms

• "Đầu tắt mặt tối": (lit. head extinguished, face dark) To be extremely busy from morning till night, implying constant hard work that may lead to lao lực.
  • Ông ấy đầu tắt mặt tối lo cho gia đình, rồi sinh ra lao lực. (He works tirelessly from dawn to dusk for his family, which leads to overwork.)
• "Cày như trâu": (lit. to plow like a buffalo) To work very hard like a beast of burden, a colloquial expression for overworking.
  • Anh ta cày như trâu cả tháng nay, chắc chắn là đang lao lực. (He has been working like a buffalo all month; he is definitely overworking.)