transitive. To cause or force to work too hard; to exhaust or oppress with excessive work.

To treat as a slave; to employ in hard or servile labour.

transitive. To exact hard work from.

transitive. Nautical (chiefly North American, in later use historical). To punish by keeping at disagreeable and unnecessary hard work; to harass…

transitive. To subject to drudgery. rare.

Nautical. To drive or urge at work unfairly or tyrannically; also (workmen's slang), ‘to work to death’, to out-work.

intransitive. To exploit slave labour; to demand hard or servile labour. Also transitive, to demand an excessive amount of work from (a person).

U.S. regional (western). transitive. To overwork or mistreat (a person); (also) to attack verbally; to tease; to criticize sharply.