ぬくsee it through; all the way through
Someone keeps at something hard and gets all the way through it, without giving up partway.
The residents got through the harsh winter on limited food.
How to form it
Verb ます-stem + ぬく（抜く）
やります → やり抜く, usually written with the kanji. 抜く takes the endings: やり抜いた, やり抜きます. Only certain verbs take it.
- Before it
- Mostly verbs of effort or endurance: やる, 生きる, 耐える, 戦う, 守る, 走る.
- Often with
- 最後まで, and a word for what made it hard.
- Tone
- Admiring about someone else. About yourself, often a vow not to give up.
- Where you'll meet it
- Sports reports, speeches, mottos, stories of people who came through something. Not small talk.
The ones people say
Most are set words. You can't make new ones freely. With any other verb, 最後まで and the plain verb is the safe way to say "to the end".
やり抜くsee it through
This job won't be easy, but let's see it through to the end.
生き抜くsurvive, live through
The stranded person survived for a week on very little food and water.
考え抜くthink it right through
The two of us thought it through until we had an answer we could accept.
The hard part is the thinking: every side, until nothing is left to weigh.
選び抜くpick with great care
We use only hand-picked ingredients.
A favorite of advertising, in the passive.
Two things to know
There was something to get through
抜く says it was hard. With an ordinary task it is too grand.
Sounds odd: 今日の
I saw today's homework through to the end.
Fine as a joke. Otherwise 宿題が終わった.
Not every 抜く is this one
抜く alone is to pull out or get past, and some words keep that meaning: 追い抜く (overtake), 見抜く (see through a lie).
Not said: 映画を
(I watched the film to the end.)
最後まで見た.
Close neighbours
通すN3
Keeping the same thing up from start to finish, without stopping or changing. ぬく is about getting through something hard. With やる and 守る both are said, with little between them.
The two of them kept the secret all the way to graduation day.
切るN3
All of it, to the last page or the last drop. It doesn't say it was hard.
I read the manual right to the end.
Check yourself
1What does this say?
彼女は
Choose an answer to see why.
2"We watched the game to the end."
試合を
Choose an answer to see why.
More sentences
Though she struggled with a lack of funds, she saw her five-year research project through to the end.
He gave in to no pressure and kept his promise to his colleagues to the end.
Both teams fought on to the very end of extra time.
After thinking it through for days, I decided to rework the plan from scratch.