trudge
Americanverb (used without object)
-
trudges,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trudged,
past participle, past
-
trudging
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
trudges,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trudged,
past participle, past
-
trudging
present participle
noun
-
trudges
plural
verb
-
(intr) to walk or plod heavily or wearily
-
(tr) to pass through or over by trudging
noun
Synonym Usage
See pace 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
trudgesimple
-
trudgessimple
-
have trudgedperfect
-
has trudgedperfect
-
am trudgingprogressive
-
are trudgingprogressive
-
is trudgingprogressive
-
have been trudgingperfect progressive
-
has been trudgingperfect progressive
Past
-
trudgedsimple
-
had trudgedperfect
-
was trudgingprogressive
-
were trudgingprogressive
-
had been trudgingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trudge
First recorded in 1540–50; perhaps blend of tread and drudge
Explanation
To trudge is to walk in a heavy, exhausted way. Your grandpa probably tells you about how he used to trudge six miles uphill through a foot of snow in the brutal cold every morning just to get to school. Trudge is also a noun that means a difficult, labored walk. If you take a mile-long trudge through heavy snow or mud, your steps will be slower and it will require more effort to put one foot in front of the other. Need help remembering what trudge means? Say it out loud. Trudge rhymes with sludge — and walking through sludge, or thick muck, would cause you to trudge.
Vocabulary lists containing trudge
List 3
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Touching Spirit Bear
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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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:
Many people are sticking with their current job, knowing that unemployed workers have to trudge through job hunts that last for months.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026
Life can be a trudge; what’s on display at the expo each year is a treat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
On the now daily trudge to work through the snow and ice, I came across a mum and daughter scraping their car clear of heavy snow.
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2026
The question now, as the Trojans trudge ahead without Watkins, is where USC might be next March, with Smith, Howell and Heckel presumably leading the way.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2025
The prisoners trudge clockwise around the prison yard, marching single file on the worn path, their gray prison smocks billowing like the wings of birds.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
For now, Zombie LIV trudges on at a tournament in Mexico City that neither you or I are watching.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
As the film trudges from his hospice bed to his youth, we’ll come to see that the doomed townsfolk have the same faces and mannerisms of people Chuck knew as a child.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2025
A disconsolate-looking Abdallah Sima trudges off - yet another injury problem for the Rangers manager.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2024
As the region trudges toward the great dark of winter, longer nights will help cool off daytime temperatures.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 10, 2023
And the moon, dragged along, trudges around us at a little more than half a mile per second.
From "100 Sideways Miles" by Andrew Smith
Wodehouse caper: “Jacqui Cutler trudged into her expansive kitchen, looking every bit as worn out and miserable as someone who had spent the morning digging potatoes, which she most certainly had not.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Navigating around the crater, Al-Ahmad trudged into the blown-out remains of the hall, his feet crunching on an underbrush of glass, wood splinters and insulation.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2026
Only a few hundred dispirited Chelsea fans were still inside Wembley as Cole Palmer and Co trudged up the steps to collect their losers' medals following their FA Cup final defeat by Manchester City.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
And at the waterfall, snails that could easily be confused for pebbles slowly trudged along algae-covered rocks as Semple Run flowed by.
From Slate ● Apr. 27, 2026
I trudged down the hall to my room, alone, but when I turned to shut the door she was standing in it, still toting the baby on her hip.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
From one end of their 800-mile-long, crocodile-shaped Caribbean island to the other, Cubans are suffering through hot, sleepless nights and trudging through exhaustion and hunger by day.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The image of Zinedine Zidane trudging past the pitchside World Cup trophy is legendary.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
I’m happy to share verbal news, but I didn’t want videos or photos of me trudging around.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
For all the times that feeding yourself feels like trudging through a fog of obligation, sometimes a craving arrives fully formed, as if it’s been plotting in the background.
From Salon ● Nov. 12, 2025
I blow out my deer-fat candle and run outside to meet this old friend who is trudging up the trail.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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.
