slave away

slave away (third-person singular simple present slaves away, present participle slaving away, simple past and past participle slaved away)

1. (intransitive) To work very hard.
   • 1999, Elizabeth Berger, Raising Kids with Character: Developing Trust and Personal Integrity in Children, Rowman & Littlefield (2004), →ISBN, page 107:

     Rochelle is a perfectionistic, timid, dutiful girl, and she has been slaving away for hours on her math.

   • 2006, M. Keith Booker, Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture, Praegar (2006), →ISBN, page 255:

     Thomas Anderson works at what is presumably a moderately well paying middle-class professional job, but his life as a computer programmer for a large corporation, slaving away in a tiny cubicle in a high-rise office building, seems seems mind-numbingly boring and routine.

   • 2010, Rachel Saunders, The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, Andrews McMeel (2010), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

     I slaved away in my tiny kitchen, gradually developing my own techniques in my quest for perfect results.