ball-breaker

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Noun	1.	ball-breaker - a demanding woman who destroys men's confidence ball-buster adult female, woman - an adult female person (as opposed to a man); "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
	2.	ball-breaker - a job or situation that is demanding and arduous and punishing; "Vietnam was a ball-breaker" ball-buster chore, job, task - a specific piece of work required to be done as a duty or for a specific fee; "estimates of the city's loss on that job ranged as high as a million dollars"; "the job of repairing the engine took several hours"; "the endless task of classifying the samples"; "the farmer's morning chores"

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References in periodicals archive ?

I was displayed in the media as everything from a ball-breaker to a bimbo and all because I was a woman and a young woman at that.

Baroness hails her early years at Blues helm

She's got some of the best lines in the film, in any film really, and as the Prime Minister's PR woman, she's brutal - a real ball-breaker," he says with a grin.

'I'm just a sucker for romance' Drama, action, sci-fi - he's tried it all. But there's one genre Hollywood heart-throb and sassy Scot Ewan McGregor simply can't resist, as Susan Griffin discovers

To an eight-year-old lad, The Nutcracker was a ball-breaker, it was anti-Christmas, too girlie.

From Spandau to ballet

Being the complete ball-breaker that she is, Becky wears him down until he concedes and reluctantly takes the job.

Predictable ending

However, Alex admits she's bewildered as to why she's constantly at the top of casting agents' lists when they're looking for someone to play a no-nonsense ball-breaker.

High hopes for Ian's new family drama... COVENTRY director Ian Barnes was nominated for a Bafta this year for his work on Casualty and is now involved in new family drama Hope Springs as TV writer MARION McMULLEN finds out...: The cast bonded with a boozy night in the pub

But '90s Vera too often comes off as a shrill ball-breaker.

Little Moscow

I'd always suspected Roz was a bit of a ball-breaker in the office but this was the kind of Nutcracker you wouldn't want to hum along to.