drudge
Americannoun
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a person who does menial, distasteful, dull, or hard work.
-
a person who works in a routine, unimaginative way.
verb (used without object)
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drudges,
present (3rd person singular)
-
drudged,
past participle, past
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drudging
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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drudgesimple
-
drudgessimple
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have drudgedperfect
-
has drudgedperfect
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am drudgingprogressive
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are drudgingprogressive
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is drudgingprogressive
-
have been drudgingperfect progressive
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has been drudgingperfect progressive
Past
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drudgedsimple
-
had drudgedperfect
-
was drudgingprogressive
-
were drudgingprogressive
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had been drudgingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
A drudge is someone who works very hard, especially at a job that is boring. To drudge is to work hard. One thing just about everyone has in common is complaining about work. Drudges have a little more to complain about than others: a drudge is someone whose job is difficult but isn't very interesting. Factories and coal mines are full of drudges: diligent folks doing work that isn't super-interesting. Such work is often called drudgery. Also, when you're working hard at anything, you can call it drudging. We all drudge when we have something to do that we would rather avoid.
Vocabulary lists containing drudge
Lyddie
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The Shakespeare Stealer
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The Merchant of Venice
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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.
See Examples For:
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
Apart from drudge paperwork, Peter’s job is to answer a phone that “never rings” — except it does, and it’s Rose.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2023
Saul is an hourly wage drudge who lives alone and constantly scans for anyone who might recognize him from his days as a wanted man in the aftermath of “Breaking Bad” infamy.
From New York Times ● Jul. 25, 2022
It will leave the impression that as brilliant and accomplished as you are, you will not be a drudge.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 3, 2022
Miss Preston was convinced that the best way to correct minor misconduct was a little drudgery, and housework was the pinnacle of drudge.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
The 40-year-old pop star and her attorney Mathew Rosengart have taken legal action against her father Jamie and sister Jamie Lynn as the court battle regarding her 13-year conservatorship drudges on.
From Fox News ● Jan. 19, 2022
To meet kind intentions with the suggestion that your wife’s friends become drudges because you choose not to handle the simple tasks of everyday life both insults them and reveals a great deal about you.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2021
They’re not the defense-first drudges they became under coach Darryl Sutter, but they’ve also learned that having freedom to be creative offensively and actually scoring aren’t connected.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 20, 2018
Critically, we need to understand that far from being drudges, mothers are, in fact, creating the very course of our species’ future.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 11, 2015
Despite the heavy silver cuffs and high, painful-looking bun that mark all of Blackcliff’s drudges, nothing about her says slave.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
As I had drudged on with Cathy, I thought back to the infamous Nigerian prince scam, the great phishing attempt that seemingly defined the early internet.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025
Literally, as a snowstorm of historic proponents hit the Big Apple, and our intrepid Midge drudged forward resolutely and inappropriately dressed.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2023
Taillon also drudged through his previous start, allowing six runs over 5 2/3 innings against Houston in a game New York came back to win 7-6.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 29, 2022
When Maryland guard Taylor Mikesell was asked Monday how good it felt to break out of a month-long shooting lull against Indiana, the sophomore drudged up just a few words about her performance.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 25, 2020
While de Vries was still knee-deep in the study of plant hybrids in the spring of 1900, a friend sent him a copy of an old paper drudged up from the friend’s library.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
But if the new lines go through for 2026, they could pit long-serving older members of the Texas delegation against younger newcomers, drudging up existing tensions in the Democratic Party over age and seniority.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2025
Those efforts all have something in common: They use software to take on drudging tasks like transcribing and initial data-gathering so that journalists have more time to do more intensive reporting.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2023
For much of training camp, the QB clash was a drudging one in which neither passer strung together stellar performances from one day to the next, and sometimes not even from one drill to another.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 25, 2021
The defense tried to discredit Constand and the other women, attacking their credibility and drudging up their past misbehaviors.
From The Verge ● Apr. 26, 2018
He would have given half he possessed to say at that moment: "What about a lovely girl who is drudging away in England to support your child?"
From Poppy The Story of a South African Girl by Cynthia Stockley
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.
