Wiktionary
alt. (context idiomatic English) Hard, boring, routine work. n. (context idiomatic English) Hard, boring, routine work.
Usage examples of "donkey work".
Like Annie said: somebody has to serve at meetings, even if serving is donkey work.
Not thirty yards from the warehouse exit I ran into two of our brothers doing donkey work for Do Trang while standing lookout.
They tended to have young chaps around them doing the donkey work, these fellers.
In the happier days on the family farm, he'd seen their little donkey work the harder for praise, and admiration had doubled the number of mice laid out for inspection by the granary cat.
Exile had Gossamer and Spidersilk doing donkey work, rounding up wizards and whatnot who came here to grab the spike.
If I bought up as much as I could, I'd have something better to trade for goods and services than the donkey work I'd been taking on, just so I wasn't sitting on my hands and living off Ryshad's efforts.
He does all my donkey work, and wraps my knuckles if I go too far.
And I can talk to someone at Brooklyn College, maybe my ABC or my girl from Brooklyn could get credit as a student intern and I'll have someone to do some of the donkey work.
After that it was just a matter of a lot of donkey work, much of which the computers did.
Ill find her, but you assign someone else for the donkey work, Timwick.