heavy lifting
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
doing the most difficult or important part of a task
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
làm phần khó khăn hoặc quan trọng nhất của công việc
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: physically lifting heavy objects
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The team leader did the heavy lifting to meet the project deadline
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “heavy lifting” mean?
doing the most difficult or important part of a task Literally: physically lifting heavy objects
Is “heavy lifting” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.