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.
In death as in life, the only relief he can find is in the bookkeeping drudgery that has become not just his identity but his very soul.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 18, 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
Youth practices often began just after Olympians’ sessions ended, which meant the young Stolz could watch the best in the world endure the grueling drudgery of training.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 11, 2026
There was a time when such a brutal schedule would have seemed like pure drudgery.
From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 25, 2025
Miss Preston was convinced that the best way to correct minor misconduct was a little drudgery, and housework was the pinnacle of drudge.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
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"
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
