drudge

American  

[druhj] / drʌdʒ /

noun

1. a person who does menial, distasteful, dull, or hard work.

2. a person who works in a routine, unimaginative way.

---

verb (used without object)

drudged, drudging

1. to perform menial, distasteful, dull, or hard work.

   Synonyms:

   slave, plod, grub, hack, toil

drudge British  

/ drʌdʒ /

noun

1. a person, such as a servant, who works hard at wearisome menial tasks

---

verb

1. (intr) to toil at such tasks

Other Word Forms

• drudger noun
• drudgingly adverb

Etymology

Origin of drudge

1485–95; compare OE man's name Drycghelm helmet maker, equivalent to drycg (akin to drēogan to work) + helm helm ²

Example Sentences

Instead of Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren playing picture-perfect Mitch and Melanie, the original presents Nat Hocken, a disabled war veteran who works as a farm laborer, and whose wife remains a nameless domestic drudge.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 24, 2025

Ultimately, this revolution may just reduce drudge work and the number of billable hours spent on relatively simple tasks, freeing people to focus more on lawyering.

From New York Times • May 31, 2023

Maybe the AI language generator ChatGPT will free you from written drudge work.

From Washington Post • Jan. 3, 2023

It’s a Cinderella story, minus everything but the drudge and the stepmother.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 12, 2021

Anyway, yesterday and the day before they needed someone else to do all these challenging tasks while they found another drudge to replace her.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein