make heavy going of
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to make something difficult or laborious
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
làm cho điều gì trở nên khó khăn hoặc mất nhiều công sức
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: to make progress with great effort
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She made heavy going of the hike due to her injury
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 “make heavy going of” mean?
to make something difficult or laborious Literally: to make progress with great effort
Is “make heavy going of” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.