travail

American  

[truh-veyl, trav-eyl] / trəˈveɪl, ˈtræv eɪl /

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.

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verb (used without object)

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

2. to toil or exert oneself.

travail British  

/ ˈtræveɪl /

noun

1. painful or excessive labour or exertion

2. the pangs of childbirth; labour

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verb

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

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.

Example Sentences

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

Hurston was a “keen strategist of racial deference,” and her views on America’s racial travail clashed with those of another project writer and seminal Black author, Richard Wright.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2021

Forty is a biblical number, used as shorthand for a long period of isolation and travail.

From Washington Post • Nov. 10, 2020

He has already endured five decades of political travail and far worse from life.

From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2020

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

Related Words

• agony
• anguish
• tribulation
• woe