usage: strive and make an effort to reach a goal; "She tugged for years to make a decent living"; "We have to push a little to make the deadline!"; "She is driving away at her doctoral thesis"
2. labor, labour, toil, fag, travail, grind, drudge, dig, moil, work, do work
usage: work hard; "She was digging away at her math homework"; "Lexicographers drudge all day long"
usage: doing arduous or unpleasant work; "drudging peasants"; "the bent backs of laboring slaves picking cotton"; "toiling coal miners in the black deeps"