grunt work
Unglamorous menial labor
Grunt work is tedious, unglamorous labor that requires effort but little skill or creativity—the necessary drudgery behind any larger project.
The term comes from military slang, where a grunt is an infantry soldier who does the hard, unsung work.
The interns handle most of the grunt work around here.
- drudgeryHard, boring work
- menialLowly and unskilled
- busy workUnproductive assigned tasks
- busyworkMeaningless assigned tasks
- scut workUndesirable menial labor
toil · donkey work · tedious · grind · dirty work · schlep · repetitive · wage slave · laborious · slog · bottom rung · clerical work · pencil pushing · monotonous · unskilled labor · paper-pushing · number crunching · manual
- workjob, 9 to 5, jobs, labor, employee
- manual laborfarming, lifting, carrying, shoveling, loading
- drudgerychores, housework, busywork, drudgery, routine tasks
- Hard Workgrind, hustle, toil, effort, labor
- labor idiomsnose to the grindstone, burning the midnight oil, pull your weight, crunch time, work like a dog
- busyworkbusywork, make-work, drudgery, tedium, scut work
grunt workcreative work
Original artistic production
innovation · strategic thinking · ideation · brainstorming · thought leadership
grunt workskilled labor
Trained professional work
expert analysis · craft work · virtuoso performance · surgery · rocket science