make hard work of
English
editAlternative forms
editVerb
editmake hard work of (third-person singular simple present makes hard work of, present participle making hard work of, simple past and past participle made hard work of)
- (idiomatic) To do (something) in a way that makes it more difficult than it needs to be.
- 1895, Wisconsin Farmers' Institutes, A Hand-book of Agriculture, page 196:
- The motion is from the shoulder rather than from the elbow, moving the whole arm, and there is no need to make hard work of it.
- 1905, Ad Sense: Devoted to the Interests of Buyers of Advertising, page 582:
- I made hard work of a very easy task .
- 1985, Maurice Taylor, Easy Steps to the Band, page 67:
- Don't make hard work of it . An instrument in good condition is easy to blow when properly played.
- 2022, Andrew Rippin, The Qur'an and its Interpretative Tradition, page 47:
- Unfortunately, Versteegh made hard work of his task once again by using the rather difficult manuscript from Cairo, Dār al-kutub 242 (Versteegh describes this manuscript on p. 156 as "very hard to read, and we have managed to analyze only parts of it.").
- (idiomatic) To struggle to accomplish something.
- 1891, John Pancoast Gordy, Rise and Growth of the Normal-school Idea in the United States, page 80:
- For arithmetic to-day, as the pupils made hard work of the examples yesterday, I changed only the numbers.
- 2003, Gordon Banks, Banksy: The Autobiography of an English Football Hero:
- While we had made hard work of defeating Sheffield United in our FA Cup semifinal, Spurs were breezing past Burnley 3–0 in the other tie.
- 2005, Gene Kerrigan, Hard Cases – True Stories of Irish Crime:
- As Wright opened the door he made hard work of it, rattling the key in the lock.
- 2020 September 5, Phil McNulty, “Iceland 0-1 England”, in BBC Sport[1]:
- England made hard work of the win against a stubborn and well-organised Iceland but were the better and more positive side.
Translations
editdo in a way that makes it more difficult
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