travail
noun
painfully difficult or burdensome work; toil.
travailing
-
present participleof travail.present participle
A verb form that is used in progressive verb constructions and may also function as a modifier or a gerund.
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.
Here was a man who could not be tempted by honors, who refused remuneration for his services, and who against the greatest odds stood staunchly for everything which would help his travailing country.
From The History of Cuba, vol. 2 by Willis Fletcher Johnson
With the rest of the travailing creation, she was groaning in hopeful pain—not in the pain of the mother, but in the pain of the child, soon to be forgotten in the following rest.
From Alec Forbes of Howglen by George MacDonald
I had believed too in a Republican France, which is yet only in the womb of time, to be born after many pangs and sore travailing.
From A Few Words About the Devil And Other Biographical Sketches and Essays by Charles Bradlaugh
The great vision is the woman travailing in pain to be delivered of a manchild.
From Studies in Prophecy by Arno C. Gaebelein
And at last she could distinguish faintly, far-away, as by some new sense, a murmur of the twilight universe, the never-ending moan of this travailing nature.
From Gilian The Dreamer His Fancy, His Love and Adventure by Neil Munro
