Donkeywork is the hard, boring part of a job or project — the slow bits that take time and sweat but do not look clever or important. Copying numbers, carrying boxes, cleaning up, checking every line: that is donkeywork. Somebody else may get the bright idea; you are left with the donkeywork. It is mainly British, informal, and a little old-fashioned, but people still say it at work and in the papers. You would tell a colleague, not write it in a very stiff report. Though actually, nobody means a real donkey. Long ago donkeys did the heavy, dull jobs that people did not want, and the word took that picture. It is not farm language today, and it is not a technical word. People stretch it a little: “the donkeywork of the research” can mean the dull reading and checking, not only work with the hands. There is no second secret meaning — it is always that unglamorous labour inside a bigger job.

苦差事（一份工作裡又累又乏味、不太體面的那部分）