exertion

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Physical effort

Nouns

1. exertion, energy, effort, strain, tug, pull, stretch, struggle, trouble, pains, endeavor, action; work ethic.

2. (physical exercises)

a. gymnastics, athletics, acrobatics; ariel, backflip, balance beam, dismount, flip, floor exercise, freestyle, handspring, handstand, high bar, horizontal bar, horse, Indian club, iron cross, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, somersault, springboard, straddle, tilt board, trapeze, tuck, twist, uneven bars, vault, vaulting horse, walkover.

b. calisthenics, exercise, workout, dancercise; training, sport, play, drill, daily dozen, warm-up, sitting-up exercises, jumping jack, pull- or push-up, roadwork, scissors, setting-up exercises.

3. (physical labor) workforce; labor, work, toil, task, travail, manual labor, sweat of one's brow, elbow grease, wear and tear, toil and trouble, yeoman work, uphill work, drudgery, slavery, heavy duty, run for one's money. Informal, daylighting.

4. laborer, worker, toiler, drudge, slave; workhorse, packhorse, galley slave, Trojan; carny, roustabout, odd-job man, contingent worker, seasonal employee, migrant worker; exerciser; gymnast; human resources. Informal, temp. Slang, workaholic, workaphile; obligate runner, redneck.

Verbs

1. exert oneself, put one's back to it, go to or take the trouble, set or put one's hand to, roll up one's sleeves, strive, strain, pull, tug, ply, struggle, try; lay, fall, or turn to; fall over oneself, fall over backward, sink one's teeth into, go out of one's way, go the extra mile, knock oneself out, go for broke. Informal, go gangbusters.

2. labor, work, toil, moil, sweat, plug, plod, drudge, slave; buckle down, dig in, bear down, wade into, come to grips; put one's back into, put one'sshoulder to the wheel, lay, sail, or pitch into; work like a horse; burn thecandle at both ends; work one's fingers to the bone, keep one's nose to thegrindstone, persevere, take pains, do one's best, bend over backward, strain every nerve, spare no pains, move heaven and earth, burn oneselfout, work like a beaver, work one's fingers to the bone; work off; hammerout (see production).Slang, sweat blood, go to town, blow one's brainsout, break one's neck, burn the midnight oil, bust one's buns.

3. exercise, work out, warm up, train, drill. Informal, aerobicize.

Adjectives — laboring; laborious; strained, toilsome, troublesome, wearisome, uphill, Herculean; hardworking, painstaking, strenuous, energetic; workaday.

Adverbs — laboriously, lustily; with might and main, with all one's might, tooth and nail, hammer and tongs, heart and soul; by the sweat of one's brow; energetically. Informal, like mad.

Phrases — the laborer is worthy of his hire; if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well; many hands make light work; where bees are busy, there is honey; a woman's work is never done; diligence is the mother of good luck; practice makes perfect; Saturday's child works hard for its living.

Quotations — If any would not work, neither should he eat (Bible), By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day (Robert Frost), I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours (Jerome K. Jerome), Work is the curse of the drinking classes (Oscar Wilde), Work is love made visible (Kahlil Gibran), Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion (C. North-cote Parkinson), It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place (Lewis Carroll), There are no gains without pains (Adlai Stevenson).

Antonyms, see repose.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. effort, struggle, attempt, endeavor; see effort 1 .

See Synonym Study at effort .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

effort, exercise, work, strain, labor, application, *muscle, pains, *elbow grease, toil, energy, struggle.

ANT.: inertia, sloth, rest, relaxation

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The act of putting into play: application, employment, exercise, implementation, operation, play, usage, use, utilization. See USED. 2. The use of energy to do something: effort, endeavor, pain (used in plural), strain1, striving, struggle, trouble, while. Informal: elbow grease. See WORK. 3. Energetic physical action: activity, exercise. See ACTION.