"in the trenches"

[Jonathan Lighter]

You know: "at war on land"; hence "actively involved in a difficult, usu.
co-operative undertaking or industry." (More or less.)  Not in OED.

Here's an "early" transitional example. It alludes to war, but the
"trenches" are
figurative.

1966  Albin Lesky _A History of Greek Literature_ (trans. Cornelis de Heer
& James Willis (ed. 2) [rpt. London: Duckworth, 1996) 120: But we have no
reason to suppose that Tyrtaeus never wrote except in the trenches.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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