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toil

1
[ toil ]
/ tɔɪl /
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See synonyms for: toil / toiled / toiling / toils on Thesaurus.com
noun
hard and continuous work; exhausting labor or effort.
a laborious task.
Archaic. battle; strife; struggle.
verb (used without object)
to engage in hard and continuous work; labor arduously: to toil in the fields.
to move or travel with difficulty, weariness, or pain.
verb (used with object)
to accomplish or produce by toil.
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Origin of toil

1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English noun toil(e) “violent conflict, battle,” from Anglo-French toil(e), toyl “contention,” from Old French toeil, tooil “confusion, contention, battle,” ultimately from Latin tudiculāre “to stir up, beat,” verbal derivative of tudicula “machine for crushing olives,” equivalent to tudi- (stem of tundere “to strike, beat”) + -cula -cule2

OTHER WORDS FROM toil

toiler, nounun·toil·ing, adjective

Other definitions for toil (2 of 2)

toil2
[ toil ]
/ tɔɪl /
noun
Usually toils .
  1. a net or series of nets in which game known to be in the area is trapped or into which game outside of the area is driven.
  2. trap; snare: to be caught in the toils of a gigantic criminal conspiracy.
Archaic. any snare or trap for wild beasts.

Origin of toil

2
Fifst recorded in 1520–30; from French toile, from Latin tēla “web”
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Words related to toil

exertion, strive, sweat, application, drudgery, effort, industry, labor, moil, occupation, pains, travail, drudge, grind away, plod, plug away, strain, struggle, tug, work

How to use toil in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for toil (1 of 2)

toil1
/ (tɔɪl) /
noun
hard or exhausting work
an obsolete word for strife
verb
(intr) to labour
(intr) to progress with slow painful movementsto toil up a hill
(tr) archaic to achieve by toil

Derived forms of toil

toiler, noun

Word Origin for toil

C13: from Anglo-French toiler to struggle, from Old French toeillier to confuse, from Latin tudiculāre to stir, from tudicula machine for bruising olives, from tudes a hammer, from tundere to beat

British Dictionary definitions for toil (2 of 2)

toil2
/ (tɔɪl) /
noun
(often plural) a net or snarethe toils of fortune had ensnared him
archaic a trap for wild beasts

Word Origin for toil

C16: from Old French toile, from Latin tēla loom
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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