drudge

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“
She may be made a kitchen-drudge, a Cinderella, but there are powers that watch over her.

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Definitions (16)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun A person who does tedious, menial, or unpleasant work.
  2. intransitive verb To do tedious, unpleasant, or menial work.
  3. noun Chesapeake Bay Variant of dredge1.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • In the meantime he had to task that poor drudge, his muse, for present exigencies. —  Oliver Goldsmith
  • I expect you to be a drudge, a nurse, an entertainer, a very sharp accountant, and a provider of much physical comfort for me… . —  Davis, Lindsey - The Course of Honor
  • Oh dear, oh dear, that things should ever have come to this Come to what Tom, I could put up with a great deal,--more I think than most women; I could slave for you like a drudge, and think nothing about it. —  Orley Farm
  • My employers had ceased to entrust me with any commissions requiring promptitude or care; and I was nothing more than an office drudge--and a very unprofitable drudge too. —  Parkhurst Boys And Other Stories of School Life
  • And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge, and grew kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought. —  The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

drudgery ·  serf ·  employments ·  scullion ·  charwoman ·  churl ·  wretch ·  outcast ·  laborer ·  vagabond ·  toil ·  vassal
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Middle English druggen, to labor; akin to Old English drēogan, to work, suffer.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. from Middle English druggen, work hard; said to be of Celtic origin; cf. Irish drugaire, a slave or drudge, drugaireachd, slavery, drudgery; but these forms are prob. of English origin. Cf. drug, a drudge, Scots drug, pull forcibly, drug, a rough pull, English dial, drug, a timber-carriage, drudge, a large rake, as a verb, harrow, = English dredge. The word is thus prob. ult. from Anglo-Saxon dragan, English draw: see draw, drag, dredge.
  2. from drudge, v. See drug.
  3. English dial., ult. = dredge, n.
  4. English dial., ult. = dredge, v. t.
  5. Origin obscure.
 

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/drədʒ/
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