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
Residents have now started the backbreaking task of cleaning away the thick layer of mud, and picking through the wreckage for anything that can be used.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2025
But backbreaking mistakes continued to mar the Trojans on both sides of the ball.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2025
Moreover, despite how backbreaking it could be, there was a certain thrill in seeing seeds we’d planted a few days before poke tiny leaves out of the soil and shoot unstoppably upward.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
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.
