nai lưng

Definition

Verb (động từ):
- To toil, to work extremely hard, to exert oneself to the utmost: "nai lưng" describes the action of forcing oneself to use all of one's strength and effort to work or endure a difficult situation. It implies strenuous, often burdensome labor.

Usage Examples

Verb:
- Công nhân phải nai lưng làm việc dưới cái nắng nóng 40 độ. (The workers had to toil under the scorching 40-degree heat.)
- Ông ấy đã nai lưng ra làm việc để nuôi cả gia đình. (He worked his fingers to the bone to support the whole family.)
- Để hoàn thành dự án đúng hạn, cả đội phải nai lưng ra làm. (To complete the project on time, the whole team had to buckle down and work extremely hard.)

Advanced Usage

"nai lưng ra": This is a very common, emphatic variant. The particle "ra" intensifies the meaning, emphasizing the action of putting forth or exerting one's effort.
- Nó nai lưng ra mà chịu đựng mọi khó khăn. (He gritted his teeth and endured all the hardships.)
"nai lưng ra mà" + Verb: A common structure meaning "to exert oneself to...".
- Họ nai lưng ra mà trả nợ. (They are slaving away to pay off the debt.)

Variants and Related Words

Làm nai lưng (verb phrase): This is a common compound phrase meaning "to work until one's back is bent/strained," perfectly capturing the core meaning of toiling physically.
- Cả đời làm nai lưng chẳng đủ ăn. (A whole lifetime of back-breaking work is still not enough to get by.)

Synonyms

Cố gắng hết sức: to try one's hardest.
Làm lụng vất vả: to labor strenuously.
Đổ mồ hôi sôi nước mắt: to work until one's sweat boils and tears flow (idiomatic for extreme effort).
Bán mặt cho đất, bán lưng cho trời: to sell one's face to the earth and one's back to the sky (a vivid idiom describing hard farm labor).

Related Idioms

Đầu tắt mặt tối: (lit. head extinguished, face dark) - to be busy from dawn till dusk, overwhelmed with work.
- Công việc kinh doanh khiến anh ấy đầu tắt mặt tối. (The business keeps him run off his feet.)
Chân lấm tay bùn: (lit. feet muddy, hands soiled) - to engage in hard, manual labor, often agricultural.
- Ông bà ta ngày xưa chân lấm tay bùn nuôi con. (Our ancestors worked the land with their own hands to raise their children.)