work like a nailer

present singular third person works like a nailer · participle present working like a nailer · participle past worked like a nailer · past worked like a nailer

1. datedsimileTo work very hard.

   You might as well understand in the beginning that he'll have to work like a nailer for a good many years before he gets anywhere in the diplomatic service

   1918, George Barr McCutcheon, The City of Masks, New York: Dodd, Mead, page 191

   2 more examples

   Boyce was working away like a nailer at His Grace's colt, an exertion he might have spared himself , but that it is necessary to do something for one's money

   1834 September, Craven, "Goodwood Races – Tuesday, July 29", The Sporting Magazine (London) s. 2, vol. 9, no. 53, p. 388

   Lee had to work like a nailer to get the awkward craft turned about, and then by great labor at the crank "for the space of five glasses by the ships' bells, or two and a half hours," at last he arrived under the stern of what he felt certain was the Eagle.

   1947 January 13, Stewart H. Holnrook, “Lost Men of American History”, in Life, volume 22, number 2, New York, page 84