travail
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
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to suffer the pangs of childbirth; be in labor.
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to toil or exert oneself.
noun
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painful or excessive labour or exertion
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the pangs of childbirth; labour
verb
Other Word Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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has travailedperfect 3rd person singular
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have travailedperfect
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are travailingprogressive
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am travailingprogressive 1st person singular
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has been travailingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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have been travailingperfect progressive
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is travailingprogressive 3rd person singular
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travailingparticiple
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travailssingular 3rd person
Past
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had travailedperfect
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were travailingprogressive plural
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was travailingprogressive singular
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had been travailingperfect progressive
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travailedparticiple
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travailedsimple
Future
Etymology
Origin of travail
1200–50; (v.) Middle English travaillen < Old French travaillier to torment < Vulgar Latin *trepaliāre to torture, derivative of Late Latin trepālium torture chamber, literally, instrument of torture made with three stakes ( see tri-, pale 2); (noun) Middle English < Old French: suffering, derivative of travailler
Explanation
If you’ve had to bust your behind, burn the midnight oil, and shed blood, sweat, and tears to get where you are today, you could say you’ve endured significant travail. In other words, back-breakingly hard mental exertion or physical labor. Travail comes to us from a sinister Latin word: trepalium, meaning “instrument of torture.” The closest English word is probably toil, though travail means you’re not just exerting monumental effort but suffering as you do so. If your life has been hard-knock enough to be the stuff of old blues songs or Shakespearean tragedies, you’ve had your share of travails. In French, incidentally, travail simply means "work." The Spanish trabajo, "work," is closely related.
Vocabulary lists containing travail
"The Odyssey," Vocabulary from Part 1 of the epic poem
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "T"
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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Physical travail being an inexhaustible source of black comedy and a recurring metaphor for the human condition in Beckett’s writing, the depiction of mortal decline is on point.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 9, 2024
I learned that Dressler’s success had come after decades of triumph and travail.
From New York Times • Mar. 15, 2024
Mulaney's second personal travail – which he does not address at all – was his highly publicized divorce from Anna-Marie Tendler and subsequent relationship with Olivia Munn with whom he had a child.
From Salon • May 3, 2023
Nobody thinks they’re celebrating the success of the Normandy invasion, but these are still truly giddy occasions amid the usual annals of human travail.
From Washington Post • Oct. 11, 2019
He stood and I could see the travail of his spirit in how he took off his glasses and kept polishing them as if they’d never come clean.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
