digging (away)

verb

present participle of dig (away)
as in struggling
to devote serious and sustained effort it took days of digging away at the subject, but he understands it thoroughly now

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for digging (away)
  1. struggling
  2. laboring
  3. striving
  4. working
  5. banging away
Verb
  • Small businesses are struggling to hire, with 62% trying to fill positions but 84% unable to find qualified applicants, revealing a significant skills gap.
    — Sarah Hernholm, Forbes.com, 12 July 2026
  • The country is currently struggling with unemployment of around 8%, the UN estimates, and inflation that is running at what the World Bank estimates to be more than 40%.
    — Frederik Pleitgen, CNN Money, 11 July 2026
Definition of struggling
Verb
  • Since the Computing Community Consortium hosted its first conference on thermodynamic computing in 2019, a small community of researchers has been laboring to put it into practice.
    — Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 15 July 2026
  • But others are still at work, laboring under a new collective bargaining agreement with another labor organization, the International Longshoremen’s Association.
    — Talia Soglin, Chicago Tribune, 5 July 2026
Definition of laboring
Verb
  • More than 1,100 competitors striving to make it to the top of the country’s largest seven-day table tennis tournament will compete through July 9 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.
    — Doug Duran, Mercury News, 7 July 2026
  • However, labs worldwide are striving to build quantum computers with enough qubits—the quantum equivalent of the bits underlying classical computing—to execute such attacks.
    — IEEE Spectrum, IEEE Spectrum, 7 July 2026
Definition of striving
Verb
  • For the lifelong dancer, working with choreographer Kenny Ortega was a dream come true.
    — Andrea Clement, AJC.com, 17 July 2026
  • Dolce & Gabbana obviously got there first and have been working with the soccer celebrity for some years now.
    — Dylan Jones, Robb Report, 16 July 2026
Definition of working
Verb
  • Brian Cashman gets it all the time, but good, from Yankee fans; for them, banging away at Cashman on social media feels like the real national pastime.
    — Mike Lupica, New York Daily News, 16 Aug. 2025
Definition of banging away
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

digging
digging (away)
digging in
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Cite this Entry

“Digging (away).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/digging%20%28away%29. Accessed 18 Jul. 2026.

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