The phrase "abject task" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a task that is extremely unpleasant, degrading, or miserable in nature.
Example: "Cleaning the abandoned building was an abject task that no one wanted to take on."
Alternatives: "humiliating task" or "degrading task".
Last weekend, six months on from the death of our mother, and six years on from the death of my father, my brother and I were as ready as we would ever be to undertake the abject task of dismantling their home.
Based on investigative journalist Jim Schutze's book on the killing, the film dallies in areas that are usually taboo for Hollywood movies: the possibility of a gay attraction between Marty and Bobby, sex as a something that is unromantic and even lacking in affection, and murder as a laborious and abject task.
The victim is thrown into abject poverty and has the impossible task of defending herself in divorce proceedings, with the added strain of trying to keep a roof over her head and food on the table.
It is their uneasy task now to enforce a pax americana, which involves accepting the abject surrender of thousands of Iraqis while encouraging a putative rebel faction to rise up against the Ba'athist regime.
Declaring no task more urgent than rescuing a billion people in the world from "abject and dehumanizing poverty," the United Nations has come up with dozens of ways to finance the economic development of poorer countries.
Lamb has made no attempt to hide his anger at the slow progress, acknowledging the programme has proved an abject failure and describing it in an interview with the Health Service Journal as "utterly hopeless" and his "most depressing and frustrating task".
That was abject cowardice".
Of all the abject illusions!
Tyson wept, abject and philosophical.
