glutton for punishment

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Idioms and Phrases

Someone who habitually takes on burdensome or unpleasant tasks or unreasonable amounts of work. For example, Rose agreed to organize the church fair for the third year in a row—she's a glutton for punishment . This expression originated as a glutton for work in the late 1800s, punishment being substituted about a century later.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

glutton gluttonize

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