Photo credit: photo.net
I heard the phrasal verb ‘to beaver away‘ in a meeting in response to a question about how a project was going. The meaning shouldn’t be hard to guess – it simply means to work very hard at something.
– The concept of co-working is elastic but at its broadest means working alongside, and often collaborating with, people you wouldn’t normally. Users book a space in a co-working office, plonk themselves down where they can and start beavering away (The Economist).
– They have beavered away trying this and trying that and the formulations have changed over the last 50 years, but not radically (BBC).
– The lone genius, beavering away in the seclusion of his lab is how most of us imagine the great moments of innovation have come into being. But is this really the whole story? (BBC)
And here’s another picture so that it really sticks in your mind:
Photo credit: motivationals.org
Confessions of the Linguistic Spy 