drudgery

Synonym Chooser

How does the noun drudgery contrast with its synonyms?

Some common synonyms of drudgery are grind, labor, toil, travail, and work. While all these words mean "activity involving effort or exertion," drudgery suggests dull and irksome labor.

an editorial job with a good deal of drudgery

When might grind be a better fit than drudgery?

The synonyms grind and drudgery are sometimes interchangeable, but grind implies labor exhausting to mind or body.

the grind of the assembly line

When is it sensible to use labor instead of drudgery?

While the synonyms labor and drudgery are close in meaning, labor applies to physical or intellectual work involving great and often strenuous exertion.

farmers demanding fair compensation for their labor

Where would toil be a reasonable alternative to drudgery?

Although the words toil and drudgery have much in common, toil implies prolonged and fatiguing labor.

his lot would be years of back-breaking toil

In what contexts can travail take the place of drudgery?

The words travail and drudgery can be used in similar contexts, but travail is bookish for labor involving pain or suffering.

years of travail were lost when the house burned

When would work be a good substitute for drudgery?

In some situations, the words work and drudgery are roughly equivalent. However, work may imply activity of body, of mind, of a machine, or of a natural force.

too tired to do any work

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of drudgery The Voice became many things to me: a place of drudgery and triumph and endless office politics, a writing school, a talent pool, my crucible and passport. Andrew Cockburn, Harper's Magazine, 22 Aug. 2024 Demaree, who was a captain in the U.S. Army and saw such drudgery firsthand, cofounded Onebrief in 2019, getting some traction after convincing lower-rung officers that his product could automate updates to the vast planning process. David Jeans, Forbes, 28 Jan. 2025 Read more: The Best Mattresses on Amazon Keeping a clean house doesn’t have to be pure drudgery—not with a super lightweight stick vacuum or a Roomba vacuum-mop that does all the heavy lifting for you (which is a whopping 45% off for Prime members right now). Jessica Kasparian, SELF, 16 July 2024 However, like the original, it’s also grounded in the paranoia, compromises, and drudgery that are the handmaidens of intelligence work. Andy Meek, airmail.news, 23 Nov. 2024 See All Example Sentences for drudgery
Recent Examples of Synonyms for drudgery
Noun
  • Certainly; no partner should have to shoulder the burden of household labor entirely on their own.
    Mark Travers, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2025
  • The bottom line: Trump promised to lower costs, but the cost of labor may not have been exactly what voters had in mind.
    Emily Peck, Axios, 21 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • As Maine continues to see more shark detections in its waters, studies like this will be crucial in ensuring that shark conservation efforts continue while also keeping human safety a priority.
    Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes, 24 Mar. 2025
  • What’s next? Property management posted a note on some doors that said cleaning efforts would begin March 7, exactly two months after the Eaton fire ignited.
    Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times, 23 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Forest’s struggle from set pieces was a major factor in their two years of toil in the top flight.
    Paul Taylor, The Athletic, 17 Mar. 2025
  • Daisy, and a motley group of co-workers, toil in a cottage industry of agencies that evaluate harmful and offensive pictures and videos uploaded to social media.
    Anthony D'Alessandro, Deadline, 7 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • The story of Freedman's Village connects Arlington to the national history of slavery and emancipation.
    Doug Melville, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025
  • This problem dates back to the justification for slavery, when states' rights were invoked to perpetuate the brutal institution.
    David Faris, Newsweek, 17 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • The average person will lose a pint of sweat during a short session in a sauna's dry heat, according to Harvard Health.
    Angelica Stabile, Fox News, 21 Mar. 2025
  • By Sam Reed For low-key exercisers, a casual cotton T-shirt and pair of sweats is an easy lazy-day combination.
    Aemilia Madden, Glamour, 20 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • The corporate laborers of the industrial age were drudges, and might have needed the scaffolding of managerial hierarchies to make widgets in bulk.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2025
  • In other words, exactly the type of drudge work that corporates have outsourced for decades to offshore teams from the likes of Accenture, Cognizant and Infosys.
    Iain Martin, Forbes, 4 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • This imbalance often goes unnoticed, understandably leading to feelings of resentment and fatigue.
    Mark Travers, Forbes.com, 30 Mar. 2025
  • The party capitalized on the public’s fatigue after a decade of Saakashvili’s necessary but intense reforms.
    Anastasiya Zavyalova, The Conversation, 28 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Myanmar is in one of the world’s most seismically active regions, where the Eurasian and Indian plates of the Earth’s crust grind against each other.
    Sui-Lee Wee, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2025
  • Tomlinson is the second comedy influencer in recent years to find the late-show grind a tough one.
    Brian Steinberg, Variety, 26 Mar. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Drudgery.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/drudgery. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025.

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