put one's shoulder to the wheel
put one's shoulder to the wheel verb: to work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus.
Verb
put one's shoulder to the wheel (third-person singular simple present puts one's shoulder to the wheel, present participle putting one's shoulder to the wheel, simple past and past participle put one's shoulder to the wheel)
- To work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus.
- When he got to law school he knew he'd have to put his shoulder to the wheel to succeed.
- War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war...1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7
Forms of put one's shoulder to the wheel
| third-person singular present | puts one's shoulder to the wheel |
|---|---|
| present participle | putting one's shoulder to the wheel |
| past participle | put one's shoulder to the wheel |
| past | put one's shoulder to the wheel |
Origin of put one's shoulder to the wheel
From the literal action of attempting to free a cart from a rut or muddy ground.
Questions about put one's shoulder to the wheel
- What does put one's shoulder to the wheel mean?
- Put one's shoulder to the wheel means to work hard, to complete an activity with one's complete effort and focus.
- What part of speech is put one's shoulder to the wheel?
- Put one's shoulder to the wheel is a verb.
- What is the past tense of put one's shoulder to the wheel?
- The past tense of put one's shoulder to the wheel is put one's shoulder to the wheel.
Words near put one's shoulder to the wheel in the dictionary
- put one's own oxygen mask on first
- put one's oxygen mask on first
- put one's pants on one leg at a time
- put one's pride in one's pocket
- put one's shoulder into
- put one's shoulder to the wheel
- put one's stamp
- put one's toe in the water
- put one's trousers on one leg at a time
- put one's whole pussy into
- put oneself about
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: put one's shoulder to the wheel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “put one's shoulder to the wheel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_one%27s_shoulder_to_the_wheel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.