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Trojan

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Trojan horse

1. Something that initially seems innocuous but is ultimately bad or malicious. A reference to the myth in which Ancient Greek soldiers hid inside a giant wooden horse in order to gain access to the city of Troy. That personable new hire turned out to be a Trojan horse—she stole our intellectual property and sold it to the competitor!

2. A computer program that appears to be useful or harmless but secretly installs malicious code or software onto the infected computer. We have malware on our computer because that game you downloaded turned out to be a Trojan horse.

See also: horse, Trojan

work like a beaver

 and work like a mule; work like a horse; work like a slave

Fig. to work very hard. She has an important deadline coming up, so she's been working like a beaver. You need a vacation. You work like a slave in that kitchen. I'm too old to work like a horse. I'd prefer to relax more.

See also: beaver, like, work

a Trojan horse

someone or something that attacks the group or organization it belongs to

Usage notes: In Greek stories, the Trojan horse was a large wooden horse that the Greeks used to take soldiers secretly into the city of Troy in order to destroy it.

Traditional Labour supporters have accused the new leadership of being a Trojan horse trying to destroy the party from within.

See work like a dog

See also: horse, Trojan

work like a dog/trojan

to work very hard He worked like a dog all day to finish the wallpapering.

See also: dog, like, work

Trojan

see under work like a beaver (trojan).

work like a beaver

Also, work like a dog or horse or Trojan . Work very energetically and hard, as in She worked like a beaver to clean out all the closets, or I've been working like a dog weeding the garden, or He's very strong and works like a horse. The first of these similes is the oldest, first recorded in 1741; the variants date from the second half of the 1800s. Also see work one's fingers to the bone.

See also: beaver, like, work

trojan horse

n. a kind of malicious software that arrives at a personal computer embedded in some other software and then introduces routines that can gather personal information or destroy the operationality of the computer. The consultant called the intruder a “trojan horse” and said I needed yet another program to get rid of it.

See also: horse, Trojan