backbreaking
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of backbreaking
Explanation
When something is backbreaking it requires a lot of physically difficult work. You'll be exhausted after a long day of backbreaking work on a farm. Backbreaking work doesn't literally break your back, but it will probably make it ache, which explains the origin of this adjective. Digging ditches, moving furniture, and hours of harvesting vegetables are all examples of backbreaking work. You can also spell backbreaking as a hyphenated word too: back-breaking.
Vocabulary lists containing backbreaking
The Color of a Lie
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Difficult
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But the backbreaking work left behind—often in agriculture or coal mines—was worse.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025
Everyone paid to see a pitcher intentionally put himself behind in the count, let a runner on base who would come around to score, and then give up a backbreaking grand slam.
From Slate • Nov. 11, 2025
“It was gruelling, backbreaking work. It was filthy.”
From BBC • Oct. 6, 2024
I really do love it in a sick way because it’s hard, backbreaking work to do — showrunning and executive producing and fighting for every story and all of that.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 13, 2024
The work was hard, yes, but now that she was grown, she could do the most backbreaking jobs without effort.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
