Green’s Dictionary of Slang

graft n.2

[? poss. prev. or ? fig. use of SE graft, the depth of earth that may be thrown up at once with a spade (see OED, which separates this from prev.)]

efforts, hard, usu. physical, labouring work.

Show quotations
[NZ]J. Rochfort Adventures Surveyor N.Z. v. 47: I could make more money by ‘hard graft’, as they call labour in the colonies [OED].
[UK]M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 161: Millbank for thick shins and graft at the pump; / Broadmoor for all laggs as go off their chump.
[Aus]H. Lawson ‘Mitchell’s Jobs’ in Roderick (1972) 147: I’m going to sling graft and try and get some stuff together.
[UK]Mirror of Life 10 Mar. 3/1: [I]t is quite refreshing to see members of the boxing fraternity turning to hard graft.
[Aus]‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 16: You’re to be a delegate [...] and get four pound a week for gassin’, while us fools of fellers does the hard graft.
[US]‘Billy Burgundy’ Toothsome Tales Told in Sl. 57: His graft was good.
[UK]P. Macgill ‘Hell!’ Songs of the Dead End (1913) 95: We have done our graft and stuck it, boys.
[UK]F. Anthony ‘Wood-Splitting with Gus’ in Me And Gus (1977) 21: It only gave us twenty-six bob for a day’s graft.
[US]M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 35: The police in the East also appeared to have their graft organized better.
[UK]J. Curtis They Drive by Night 182: There’s no fun left on the road. Nothing but hard graft.
[UK]J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 37: If I stop here all day and the guvnor has to open his own bar by his own graft and gives me the sack for it.
[UK]G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 120: There’s no such thing as a young character or a middle-classer that does a regular ’ard day’s graft.
[Ire](con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 243: We were now kind of graft chinas.
[Aus]‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 102: Plenty graft, I s’pose.
[UK]T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 100: ‘[D]on’t come the big rich business tycoon with me. You’ve got to do your share of the graft’.
[UK]Sun. Times Mag. 12 Oct. 30: The people have retired to rest before tomorrow’s ‘graft’.
[UK]P. Barker Blow Your House Down 87: It wasn’t fucking Father Christmas that got him that, it was me. And damned hard graft.
[UK]J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 107: Easy enough retail them only hard bleeding graft doing the work.
[UK]J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 251: He didn’t see why he should split the take with Jimmy after he did all the graft, the shovel work.

In compounds