A yeoman compliment

Someone gave me a compliment, saying that my effort on a project was "yeoman's work." At first, I didn't know what they meant by that comment, and assumed it was a compliment, but to make sure what a yeoman was, I looked up the word in my European history book (which I ended up reading, which is why I didn't post this earlier).

For some odd reason, it wasn't there, even though yeomen were part of European history (!), so I looked it up online, and saw that it comes from the Middle Ages, and though back then it was a British landholder, guard, official, or attendant, it has become an adjective to commend someone on good, hard, work.

I think that's the first time that understanding a compliment required research.