laborious
The most drudging parts of housework can make people feel like machines.
It's hard to remain cheerful if you have to work at drudging labour in a factory all day.
She led the drudging life of a maid, but wanted to become a nurse.
He found the drudging work almost unbearable.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Effort and expending energy
assiduity
assiduous
assiduously
assiduousness
be running on emptyidiom
burn
effortful
effortfully
elbow grease
fight
hamster wheel
hard at itidiom
kill
plough
plough through something
push
put something in/put something into something
rearguard action
set/put your mind to somethingidiom
swing