plodded

verb

past tense of plod
1
as in labored
to devote serious and sustained effort plodded night and day to get the assignment done

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in stumbled
to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually oxen plodding through deep mud

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in dragged
to move slowly plodded reluctantly off to work

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4
as in shuffled
to move heavily or clumsily wayfarers plodding across the sandy wastes

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

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.
Recent Examples of plodded An hour into the match, Villa Park — tense as the home side plodded against Leeds United a goal down — broke out in excitement. — Jacob Tanswell, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2026 Loaded trucks plodded through the crowd with people in their cargo beds throwing tomatoes at the revelers — who, in turn, hurled them at one another. — ABC News, 26 Aug. 2026 Minnesota’s defense has been unreliable lately, but Wisconsin’s offense has plodded most of the year. — Andy Greder, Twin Cities, 28 Nov. 2025 For months, the two initiatives plodded along, with photo ops and declarations of good will. — Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025 The Demon Deacons coach ran towards Belichick while removing his hat as the six-time Super Bowl champion coach plodded his way across the field for a blow-by handshake. — Andrew McCarty, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for plodded
  1. labored
  2. stumbled
  3. dragged
  4. shuffled
  5. struggled
  6. trudged
  7. crawled
  8. stomped
Verb
  • His parents labored to reclaim local wetlands to grow wheat and soybeans.
    — Ann Scott Tyson, Christian Science Monitor, 1 Nov. 2026
  • The Virginia Theological Seminary makes annual cash payments to the descendants whose family members labored on its campus during slavery and Jim Crow eras.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 24 Oct. 2026
Definition of labored
Verb
  • Johnson had nothing but space, and stumbled to make one move before reaching the end zone for his first career touchdown.
    — Sam McDowell, Kansas City Star, 2 Nov. 2026
  • An amateur historian has stumbled upon a provocative clue to the enduring mystery of what became of a notorious pirate who raided a royal Indian treasure ship centuries ago, implicating a co-conspirator whose name is familiar to many New Yorkers.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 2 Nov. 2026
Definition of stumbled
Verb
  • The Euphemism Problem In April 2017, a passenger was dragged off a United Airlines flight in Chicago.
    — Ronn Torossian, Forbes.com, 6 Nov. 2026
  • The ship dragged its anchor along the seabed for about 80 miles, damaging two telecommunications cables, according to a court statement.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2026
Definition of dragged
Verb
  • Findings of no effect tend to either be shuffled off to low-profile journals or left behind as unpublished lab lore.
    — ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 2 Nov. 2026
  • It’s been more than a year since Ozzy Osbourne shuffled off this mortal coil.
    — Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 26 Oct. 2026
Definition of shuffled
Verb
  • Yet when asked to move beyond answering questions to framing their own, many struggled.
    — Washington Post, Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2026
  • But Lloyd, who had long struggled with mental health issues, was also suffering from drug addiction, and conflicts with Verlaine led to the band’s breakup.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 8 Nov. 2026
Definition of struggled
Verb
  • Some poor families trudged from one village to another, falling victim to violence, hunger and cold.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 28 Sep. 2026
  • And, like any good party, someone had a notion that the others loved — and so the players trudged back onto the field to have a team photo taken in front of the Crown Vision board still displaying a congratulatory message to the White Sox.
    — Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of trudged
Verb
  • This year has both flown past and also crawled along at a snail’s pace.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2026
  • The lawsuit says Brave crawled and copied content from more than 30 billion webpages in its index without identifying itself or providing the owners of websites any mechanism to block its crawler, according to the newspapers’ complaint.
    — Molly Crane Newman, The Orlando Sentinel, 2 Nov. 2026
Definition of crawled
Verb
  • This year, the party headed to Los Angeles, where all your favorite models — and then some — stomped the runway in lace, lace and more lace.
    — Hedy Phillips, PEOPLE, 19 Oct. 2026
  • McColley pushed Parente out onto the street and stomped his boot in the victim’s face five times, crushing Parente’s head into the pavement before fleecing his pockets and fleeing, according to the criminal complaint.
    — Rebecca White, New York Daily News, 13 Oct. 2026
Definition of stomped

Browse Nearby Words

plod
plodded
plodder
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Cite this Entry

“Plodded.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/plodded. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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