She won't be going out much, as she's beavering away on her thesis.

The most obvious impact of the strike was the “havoc” created at Glasgow and London’s Heathrow airports by striking air traffic controllers (who joined the strike in solidarity and are not themselves directly involved in the dispute). But quietly and without fuss, thousands of scientists normally beavering away in seclusion downed microscopes, test tubes, and oscilloscopes.

I was thinking more of the tendency today for people to develop whole areas of mathematics on their own, in a rather abstract fashion. They just go on beavering away.

On the other side there was a floor to ceiling partition, on which the mining share prices and dealing boards were fixed, separating the mining sales desk from the specialist mining research group who beavered away behind the partition.

Beaver away

Meaning

Verb