Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Demanding great exertion; arduous and exhausting.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective figuratively Of work, very physically
tiring .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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To create intrigue and start a conversation amongst city folk stimulating awareness about where veggies come from and the men and women who engage in backbreaking work to grow them.
Liz Neumark: Going Once, Going Thrice Liz Neumark 2010
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To create intrigue and start a conversation amongst city folk stimulating awareness about where veggies come from and the men and women who engage in backbreaking work to grow them.
Liz Neumark: Going Once, Going Thrice Liz Neumark 2010
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They had taken on a job that is accurately described as backbreaking.
Nothing Like It in the World The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 STEPHEN E. AMBROSE 2000
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They had taken on a job that is accurately described as backbreaking.
Nothing Like It in the World The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 STEPHEN E. AMBROSE 2000
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The slim, handsome woman vividly recalls the backbreaking work from sunrise to sunset clearing forests, digging irrigation canals and planting rice; hunting for frogs, rats and snakes to eat; seeing corpses piled high on oxcarts rumbling off to mass graves; her son dying on a garbage heap as he rummaged for fish bones to eat.
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People marvel that anyone could ever have done it at all, and describe the work as "drudgery" and "backbreaking" - which may be true - the guys digging the outhouses may well have hated it, and may well have preferred their new jobs, unloading pallets at Walmart to digging outhouses.
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People marvel that anyone could ever have done it at all, and describe the work as "drudgery" and "backbreaking" - which may be true - the guys digging the outhouses may well have hated it, and may well have preferred their new jobs, unloading pallets at Walmart to digging outhouses.
Energy Bulletin - 2010
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When you put that kind of backbreaking work into changing the narrative of American history -- as Russert and the others did -- you expect to see results from it.
John Eskow: Tuesday's Biggest Loser: Tim Russert (And All The Other TV Blowhards) 2008
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The thing that tipped it into "backbreaking" was the 5 pound roll of wrapping paper I slid into the basket at the last minute!
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But my goal as an interviewer is to steer them off the track, ideally through questions that the others arenât likely to ask probably because most journalists donât even bother to read the books or do the kind of backbreaking research that I do…….
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