elbow grease | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic)Effortorhardwork, especiallyphysicalwork involving repeated motion of theforearm, such asscrubbing.Synonym:elbow juice1864, Henry Wells Holly, chapter 3, inThe Art of Saw-Filing, page12:It is astonishing what miserable saws are sometimes used by mechanics, or those claiming to be such. The only way they can be coaxed or driven through the wood is by having an enormous set, a liberal use of oil, and another lubricator calledelbow-grease.1879,Anthony Trollope, chapter 5, inWilliam Makepeace Thackeray:When we were young we used to be told, in our house at home, that "elbow-grease" was the one essential necessary to getting a tough piece of work well done. If a mahogany table was to be made to shine, it waselbow-greasethat the operation needed.2019, Sunny, “Violet's Adventure”, inSunny Day:Some soapy water and a littleelbow greaseand we'll have the Glam Van clean in no time.

Examples:

EN: Just a little elbow grease.
ES: Y con un poquito de esfuerzo...
EN: Sure took a lot of elbow grease.
ES: Hubo que limpiarlas a fondo.
EN: You'd be surprised what a little elbow grease will do when you're short of money.
ES: Le sorprendería lo que puede hacerse con esfuerzo cuando se anda escaso de dinero.
EN: Put some elbow grease into it, come on!
ES: - Vamos, apúrense.
EN: Usin' the old elbow grease, Pop!
ES: ¡Usamos esa vieja cera, papá!
EN: Yep, with a little polish and elbow grease and she'll look as good as new. Oh, thanks, Mr. Hickey.
ES: Sí, con un poco de grasa en las uñas y el codo, quedará como nueva.
EN: At the palace, I stopped half the bowing and replaced it with elbow grease.
ES: En mi palacio sustituí la mitad de las reverencias por trabajo.
EN: With a lot of elbow grease you might swing it in three hours.
ES: Con un poco de grasa y suerte lo pueden hacer en 3 horas.
EN: It takes some elbow grease!
ES: ¡Que tenemos que comer, limpiad!
EN: Put a bit of elbow grease into it!
ES: ¡Sirva más pasta!
EN: I combined my pancake makeup, my eye shadow, my eyebrow pencil... my lipstick, my nail polish and some elbow grease.
ES: Combiné mi polvo de maquillaje, mi sombra de ojos, mi lápiz de cejas mi lápiz labial, mi esmalte de uñas y un poco de crema para los codos.
EN: Let's hope the elbow grease is the right color. Ha-ha!
ES: Esperemos que la crema de codos tenga el color correcto. ¡Ja-ja!
EN: I'd like a pint of strap oil, two left-handed screwdrivers, a pound of elbow grease, and a pint of cooking glue!
ES: Querría llevarme un litro de aceite de correa... dos destornilladores para zurdos... una libra de grasa del codo y un litro de cola hervida.
EN: Put some elbow grease in it.
ES: ¡Hazlo con esmero!
EN: I've been in this news game 40 years man and boy and I got where I am with guts, compassion elbow grease and something you're sadly lacking in, son.
ES: Llevo en este negocio 40 años. Me he criado aquí... y he llegado donde estoy con agallas, compasión... clavando los codos y con algo que tú no tienes, hijo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).