Meaning & use
blood and sweat
Last updated
Meanings
phrasefixed phrase
Hard physical effort and personal sacrifice used to achieve something.
Grammar: Used as an uncountable idea; it usually follows verbs like put in, give, or take, and often pairs with tears.
Patterns
- put blood and sweat into something
- blood and sweat and tears
- take blood and sweat
She put a lot of blood and sweat into getting that degree.
Building the business took years of blood and sweat.
He talks about the blood and sweat behind every performance.
phrasefixed phrasefigurative
A mixture of physical injury and heavy exertion, as in a very hard contest.
Grammar: Often used literally in sport or war contexts, where both real blood and real sweat are involved.
Patterns
- a contest of blood and sweat
- blood and sweat on the field
The final was pure blood and sweat, with both boxers exhausted.
The soldiers described the campaign as blood and sweat from start to finish.
Common combinations
- blood, sweat, and tears
- He gave blood, sweat, and tears to the project.
- put in blood and sweat
- They put in blood and sweat to finish the bridge on time.
- years of blood and sweat
- After years of blood and sweat, the farm finally paid off.
- blood and sweat on the pitch
- There was blood and sweat on the pitch by the final whistle.
- worth the blood and sweat
- The medal was worth all the blood and sweat.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hard graft
- British informal; stresses tiring work rather than personal sacrifice, so it sounds less emotional.
- elbow grease
- Informal and usually about physical scrubbing or manual labor, not about sacrifice over years.
- effort
- Neutral and much weaker; it does not suggest pain, injury, or sacrifice.
- sacrifice
- Focuses on what you give up, while blood and sweat focuses on the painful work itself.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: blood and sweat or blood, sweat, and tears?
blood and sweat vs blood, sweat, and tears
This longer fixed phrase is the usual form in speeches and writing; 'blood and sweat' alone is a shortened version and sounds slightly less familiar.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'blood and sweat' most naturally?
Choose one answer.
'Put blood and sweat into something' is the standard pattern for effort and sacrifice. Option 2 uses the wrong preposition, and options 3 and 4 treat the phrase as an adjective or verb, which it is not.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “blood and sweat”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.