travail

[truh-veyl, trav-eyl]

noun

1. painfully difficult or burdensome work; toil.

   Synonyms: moil, labor

2. pain, anguish or suffering resulting from mental or physical hardship.

   Synonyms: agony, torment

3. the pain of childbirth.

verb (used without object)

1. to suffer the pangs of childbirth; be in labor.

2. to toil or exert oneself.

travail

/ ˈtræveɪl /

noun

1. painful or excessive labour or exertion

2. the pangs of childbirth; labour

verb

1. (intr) to suffer or labour painfully, esp in childbirth

Word History and Origins

Origin of travail¹

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 ( tri-, pale ² ); (noun) Middle English < Old French: suffering, derivative of travailler

Word History and Origins

Origin of travail¹

C13: from Old French travaillier , from Vulgar Latin tripaliāre (unattested) to torture, from Late Latin trepālium instrument of torture, from Latin tripālis having three stakes, from trēs three + pālus stake

Example Sentences

Yet Summers’s travails are also uniquely his own.

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And yet, for all the detail about the staff, we learn very little about their inner lives, their travails, motivations and hopes.

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Even amid the overlapping crises of homelessness, fires, economic travails, righteously disruptive protests, downtown has too much appeal to stay down forever.

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The bulk of the poem is devoted to the travails and suffering he endures on returning.

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U.K. housing website’s AI travails highlights adoption angst.

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Related Words

• agony 
• anguish 
• tribulation 
• woe