heavy lifting

• heavy-lifting

• Audio (AU)

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heavy lifting (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) The most demanding part of an endeavour; work requiring the most effort, resources, or consideration.
   • 2000 June 5, Cache as cache can (continued under the title WorkFire), InfoWorld, Volume 22, Issue 23, page 60F:

     That's what I call the heavy-lifting part of the problem, and that's really where the term genetic caching comes into play.

   • 2003 March 18, John Howard, speech to the Australian Parliament

     Alliances are two-way processes and, where we are in agreement, we should not leave it to the United States to do all of the heavy lifting just because they are the world’s superpower.

   • 2010, The 9 Month Investment: A Passive Investors Guide to Achieving 10 Years Worth of Wealth Accumulation in Only 9 Months, page 23:

     We want our experts to spend their time on this and do the heavy lifting for us.

   • 2011 Allen Gregory, "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1):

     Richard DeLongpre: Well, that went well. Come here, you. Jeremy DeLongpre: Oh, I'm really exhausted. Richard: That's okay, I'll do the heavy lifting.

   • 2023 June 28, Lauren Coates, “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny review: Harrison Ford goes to the whip”, in AV Club‎:

     any time there’s emotional heavy lifting to be done, we hear about what happened in passing as opposed to actually seeing how Indy is grappling with his ever-changing world.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see heavy,‎ lifting.

• hard yards

• carry one's weight