Backbreaking

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of work, very physically tiring. figuratively

    "A few keen enginemen, such as Driver Rosewarne of York, could coax good work out of them when engaged in heavy East Coast express service, but to most footplate crews, especially firemen, they were rather heartbreaking and backbreaking machines, and gradually were relegated to secondary or fast goods duties."

Adjective
  1. 1
    characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
effortfulannoyingarduousarduousbesettingbothersome

Example

More examples

"Man may be freed from backbreaking labor by the products of scientific technology."

Etymology

From back + breaking.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.