Slog

//slɒɡ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A long, tedious walk or march. Australia, British, Canada, countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A hard, persistent effort, session of work, or period. Australia, British, Canada, broadly, countable, uncountable

    "It is as if Mr. Faulks had bled his own prose white, draining it of emotion in order to capture the endless enervating slog of war."

  3. 3
    A book or other media that is difficult to get through due to dullness, density, or lack of narrative momentum. countable
  4. 4
    An aggressive shot played with little skill. countable
Verb
  1. 1
    To walk slowly or doggedly, encountering resistance. intransitive

    "The leading engine was one of the Class Y6 2-8-8-2 compound articulateds, [...] The stack noise of one of these great brutes slogging up a grade was quite unforgettable."

  2. 2
    strike heavily, especially with the fist or a bat wordnet
  3. 3
    To work slowly and deliberately at a tedious task. broadly, intransitive
  4. 4
    walk heavily and firmly, as when weary, or through mud wordnet
  5. 5
    To strike something with a heavy blow, especially a ball with a bat.
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    work doggedly or persistently wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
slugplug awayambleambulatebangbarge

Example

More examples

"It was a hard slog for Mary to raise her two children as a single parent."

Etymology

Probably a variation of slug (“to hit very hard”) or slough. Possibly related to slag, seen in the North Germanic languages, in association with the third verb and second noun definition.

Related phrases

slog awayslog one's guts outslog-sweep

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