drudgery
Usage
What are other ways to say drudgery?
Drudgery suggests continuous, dreary, and dispiriting work, especially of a menial or servile kind: the drudgery of household tasks. Labor particularly denotes hard manual work: backbreaking labor; arduous labor. Toil suggests wearying or exhausting labor: toil that breaks down the worker's health. Work is the general word and may apply to exertion that is either easy or hard: fun work; heavy work.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The psychological damage from the labor camp coupled with the oppression of the Communist regime infiltrated the house, where her mother’s constant cleaning and other drudgery was a way of maintaining sanity and order.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026
People who ignore or undervalue prompting will remain trapped in the drudgery of manual operations, where data points must be located and assembled.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 25, 2026
It's a reminder of the human drudgery underpinning how AI systems operating in the physical world learn.
From BBC • Jan. 11, 2026
But he soon came to realize that Saban-style drudgery could be counterproductive.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 9, 2025
There’s a level of drudgery and unpleasantness involved.
From "Girl in the Blue Coat" by Monica Hesse
Vocabulary lists containing drudgery
Labor Day Lexicon: Words That Put You To Work
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The Things They Carried
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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