Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DRUDGERY
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pronounce
DRUDGERY:
Say it "DRUH jur ee."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
Ugh, that shift will be long, painful, tedious, and backbreaking. It'll be drudgery. I'm sure you can relate.
Too much drudgery can make you t___-w___: totally exhausted from too much hard work. Or even h_____d: worked to the bone, long-suffering.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
We're not completely sure where the word "drudge" came from, but we've used it since the 1500s to mean "a slave: a person who does hard, long, unpleasant work."
"Drudge" is also a verb: to drudge is to work hard at long, unpleasant tasks.
And drudgery is the work itself: the long, hard, boring, unpleasant work to be done.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Noun, most often the uncountable kind: "He thought of it as drudgery;" "She's exhausted from this mindless drudgery."
Rarely, the countable kind: "the drudgeries of the teen years" (The Guardian).
Other forms:
Drudge, drudges; drudger(s); drudged, drudging.
Notice how you might refer to someone as a "drudge" (a slave-like worker) or a "drudger" (a doer of slave-like work). What's the difference? Not too much; "drudge" suggests a bit more strongly than "drudger" that the work is the person's identity. If it's not at all their identity, then they're neither, but rather "someone who drudges," right?
how to use it:
Pick the formal, semi-common word "drudgery" to emphasize how a job is boring, repetitive, and physically and/or emotionally demanding. The word hints at ongoing suffering, suggesting that the work is basically slavery, offering no meaningful benefits besides survival.
Yes, the tone is often that serious: "the drudgery of deployment;" "the drudgery of scrubbing motel rooms;" "the drudgery of dieting;" "Office Space, the Mike Judge movie that lampooned the drudgery of the corporate workplace" (New York Times). (These are all just examples, folks. I'm not saying that certain kinds of work are always drudgery by everyone who does them.)
You can definitely use this word for sarcasm and exaggeration: "the drudgery of Christmas shopping," "the never-ending drudgery that is fall baseball" (The Onion); "technical drudgery... every time you accidentally print doublesided, it prints on the right kind of paper, but single sided only prints on marigold" (Reductress).
examples:
"It reeked of drudgery: waiting tables, washing dishes, cleaning floors."
— Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere, 2007
"Treating addiction involves a great deal of rinse-and-repeat behavior; at heart, it's drudgery."
— Judith Newman, New York Times, 6 July 2018
has this page helped you understand "drudgery"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "drudgery" without saying "gruntwork" or "menial labor."
try it out:
Fill in the blanks: "_____ sounds like (fun, freedom, excitement, or a challenge); _____ sounds like drudgery."
Example 1: "'Organizing the clean clothes' sounds like a good time; 'folding the laundry' sounds like drudgery."
Example 2: "Art sounded like freedom; school sounded like drudgery."
— Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, 20 June 2018
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game this month is Subject Line Matching!
Try matching each capitalized term below with the email subject line that introduced it. You can check your answers by scrolling all the way down. For an extra challenge, try recalling what each term means and how the subject line connects to it. Have fun!
BANDY: _____
DOLCE FAR NIENTE: _____
PLATITUDE: _____
QUAVER: _____
TEDIOUS: _____
great way to get stabbed through a curtain
nothing to do and totally loving it
[sighs in disgust]
throw phrases, catch phrases
what's shakin'?
review this word:
A. PUSHOVER.
B. FREE LABOR.
C. SLAVE DRIVER.
2.
According to Nature, "Many economists expect that _____ will further remove drudgery from our working lives."
A. machines
B. telecommuting
C. the fear of being accused of harassment
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
We're not completely sure where the word "drudge" came from, but we've used it since the 1500s to mean "a slave: a person who does hard, long, unpleasant work."
Part of speech:
Pick the formal, semi-common word "drudgery" to emphasize how a job is boring, repetitive, and physically and/or emotionally demanding. The word hints at ongoing suffering, suggesting that the work is basically slavery, offering no meaningful benefits besides survival.
"It reeked of drudgery: waiting tables, washing dishes, cleaning floors."
Explain the meaning of "drudgery" without saying "gruntwork" or "menial labor."
Fill in the blanks: "_____ sounds like (fun, freedom, excitement, or a challenge); _____ sounds like drudgery."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
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