rough-and-tumble vs work at

rough-and-tumble

verb
  • Engage in rough-and-tumble activity 

noun
  • An environment of rough activity 

  • Rough activity; fighting or brawling; a fight. 

  • A person who characteristically engages in such activity 

adj
  • active, vigorous and rough, with the possibility of harm 

  • highly competitive 

work at

verb
  • To make a physical or mental effort to progress some specified task; to endeavor or struggle on an issue or project. 

How often have the words rough-and-tumble and work at occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )