graft
n.hard work, especially work that is tiring or difficult. In a different context, it can also mean using your power in a dishonest way to get money.
n.hard physical or mental labour; alternatively, the acquisition of money or advantage through dishonest or illegal means in politics or business. Often carries a British colloquial nuance when referring to work.
“Success in this industry requires years of hard graft.”
“The investigation revealed a deep-seated culture of graft and bribery within the city's construction department.”
Uncountable when referring to hard work or political corruption; countable in medical or botanical contexts.
“Prime Minister Balendra Shah, 36, rose to power this year on the back of youth anger with graft and mismanagement.”
“But in cases of extensive burns, there may not always be enough healthy skin to graft.”
From Middle English graffe, from Old French greffe (“stylus”), from Latin graphium (“stylus”), from Ancient Greek γραφείον (grapheíon), from γράφειν (gráphein, “to write”); probably akin to English carve. So named from the resemblance of a scion or shoot to a pointed pencil. Doublet of graphium. Compare graphic, grammar.
From Middle Dutch graft (“canal”), from graven (“dig”). The contemporary senses “depth of digging blade” and “narrow spade” may have a separate history, but this is uncertain. Compare Old English grafet (“trench”), Old Norse grǫft (“the action of digging”). Attested from the 17th century. Doublet of gracht.
Uncertain. Some lexicographers suggest an extended use of Etymology 2, above, expanding from “digging” to work more generally, and from there to dishonest work. Others, however, suggest an extension from Etymology 1, shifting from “a shoot or scion” to the notion of corruption through the idea of excrescence.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.