work like a beaver

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work like a beaver

and work like a mule; work like a horse; work like a slave

Fig. to work very hard. She has an important deadline coming up, so she's been working like a beaver. You need a vacation. You work like a slave in that kitchen. I'm too old to work like a horse. I'd prefer to relax more.

work like a beaver

Also, work like a dog or horse or Trojan . Work very energetically and hard, as in She worked like a beaver to clean out all the closets, or I've been working like a dog weeding the garden, or He's very strong and works like a horse. The first of these similes is the oldest, first recorded in 1741; the variants date from the second half of the 1800s. Also see work one's fingers to the bone.

work like a beaver

work steadily and industriously. informal

The beaver is referred to here because of the industriousness with which it constructs the dams necessary for its aquatic dwellings. The image is similarly conjured up by the phrase beaver away meaning ‘work hard’.

work like a Trojan

work extremely hard.

1974 Winifred Foley A Child in the Forest She put me to clean out all the fowls' cotes, and I worked at it like a Trojan.