Hard work: the meaning of the phrase

If you have any phrase, the meaning of which remains a mystery, it is better to divide it into its constituent parts. Then you look at the interpretation of each individual word. After such an analysis, the meaning of the whole phrase becomes extremely clear. Not everyone can correctly indicate what the combination of the words "hard work" means. To expand our vocabulary, we will figure out what interpretations endowed with the word “painstaking”, as well as “labor”. We will also find out what type of connection is there between the components of this combination of words. We also indicate synonyms and give examples of sentences with them.

The lexical meaning of the word "painstaking"

Let’s figure out what the word “painstaking” indicates. This is an adjective. It indicates masculine and singular.

In the dictionary of Ozhegov and Efremova, you can find what this language unit means:

• diligent to the smallest detail;
• very zealous;
• slow;
• assiduous or assiduous.

As you can see, the adjective has a “painstaking” positive connotation of meaning. This word indicates the diligence of a person, his attention to detail and scrupulousness.

The lexical meaning of the word "labor"

Now let's get down to the word labor. This noun refers to the masculine gender and the singular. Ozhegov’s dictionary contains several interpretations that endow the noun “labor”:

• activities that are aimed at creating spiritual or material values;

• any occupation;
• the effort that a person makes to achieve a goal;
• result of work, work;
• subject at school, which is needed to instill skills in any professional activity.

What does the phrase mean?

Now we can combine these two concepts and determine what the phrase “painstaking work” means. The meaning is this. This is called scrupulous human activity, which is aimed at achieving any goal.

Here are some examples.

Raising children is painstaking work, as it requires a huge amount of strength and energy.

The same applies to the art of embroidery. The master sits for a long time at work, does more than one hundred stitches to get a finished picture.

Planting potatoes is also an activity for the steady and patient. It takes a lot of willpower to complete this rather boring action.

In general, any type of activity that is approached with patience and perseverance can be called painstaking. Of course, it all depends on whether a person likes work or not. If labor brings moral and physical pleasure, it becomes many times faster.

Type of communication in the phrase

This is the meaning of the combination of the words "painstaking work." In some cases, it is important to understand what type of phrases a particular group of words refers to. In total there are three types of connection of the components in phrases:

• Matching. In this case, the dependent word should be consistent in the case, number and gender. Examples: good weather, a sad face, a white tablecloth.
• Control. Here, the coordination takes place depending on the case in which the main word stands. Examples: write a report, crunch your fingers, paint.
• Adjacency. The dependent word must be immutable. Examples: left to work, recorded quickly, ran stumbling.

Now we can determine what kind of connection this phrase refers to: labor (what?) Is painstaking. Here the dependent word is combined with the main case, number and gender. We can conclude that this is a coordination. We will use this phrase in the sentence: “Thanks to the painstaking work of teachers every day, children receive deep knowledge in various fields.”

How can I replace this phrase?

Is it possible to pick synonyms for the phrase “painstaking work”? Quite. To do this, it is enough to replace one of the words (or both at once) with words that are similar in meaning. You may get these options.

• Diligent work. "The builders completed the diligent work that concerned the restoration of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral."

• Laborious effort. "It cost me a lot of time-consuming efforts to lose weight and find the figure that I dreamed about all the time."
• Zealous action. "Thanks to the diligent actions of the guards, theft of products from the supermarket was avoided."
• The laborious process. "Visa application is a rather laborious process, you should stand more than one turn."
• Slow action. "The actions of law enforcement officers were albeit slow, but calibrated."

Please note that you can combine nouns and adjectives with each other. This way you get new and new options.

You can apply them in various speech situations. But it’s still worthwhile to carefully analyze the context and apply only those phrases that do not overshoot the meaning.

Now you know what the phrase "painstaking work" means. It can be used to describe the hard and diligent work that a person performs with utmost care.