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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
  • The film followed the trials of a struggling keyboardist who gets hold of a magical synthesizer, only to lose it and embark on a picaresque journey to get it back.
    — Josephine Reisman, Vulture, 24 Sep. 2026
  • In other words, Yemen and the Houthis may seem like yet another distant problem to Americans, many of whom are understandably fatigued by foreign interventions, and struggling with a spiraling cost of living.
    — Matthew Chance, CNN Money, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of struggling
Verb
  • McNeely’s portrait of a laboring mother, swathed in glowing fields of chartreuse, outshines (again, literally) art history’s greats.
    — Emily Watlington, ARTnews.com, 18 Sep. 2026
  • In line with the great tech selloff over AI spending fears, Capgemini’s share price has been laboring.
    — Kamal Ahmed, Fortune, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of laboring
Verb
  • The next year, Varjao and her husband Miguel Salinas opened their own Sea Love franchise of Sea Love in Oak Park and are striving to provide that same calming feeling for the community that Varjao felt during that family outing.
    — Cam'ron Hardy, Chicago Tribune, 25 Sep. 2026
  • MILKist led the initial research and technical formulation, striving to make a sufficiently strong sheet from 100 percent barley straw without adding other fibers or binders.
    — Alexandra Harrell, Footwear News, 23 Sep. 2026
Definition of striving
Verb
  • The team has already constructed a working proof-of-concept that measures magnetic fields by reading the spin states of the NV centers.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 23 Sep. 2026
  • Agents working with lower-risk candidates may simply be fellow migrants who speak Thai and can help confused and scared people navigate a complex bureaucracy.
    — Andrew Nachemson, The Dial, 22 Sep. 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
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

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

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