drudge
verbEtymology From Middle English druggen, perhaps from Old English *dryċġan, from Proto-West Germanic *druggjan, from Proto-Germanic *drugjaną, a denominative built to a lost noun *drugjaz (preserved in Old English Dryċġhelm), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ-; compare Old English drēogan (“to do; to suffer”).
1
To labour in (or as in) a low servile job.
- Rise to our Toils and drudge away the day.1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv'd:
- He gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged.1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:
- Derived terms
- drudger, drudgerie, drudgework, drudgingly