travail
noun
painfully difficult or burdensome work; toil.
was travailing
-
past progressiveof travail.past progressive
Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
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.
At that very moment, Douglass, looking at a picture that should have logically thrilled him to the core, was travailing in a morose discontent quite incompatible with his environment.
From The Song of the Wolf by Frank Mayer
"Now leave my bower, Willie," she said, "Now leave me to my lane; Was never man in a lady's bower35 When she was travailing."
From English and Scottish Ballads, Volume II (of 8) by Various
And while the brain that was to rule France as a tribune-king, was thus evolving its idle progeny, the womb of a Corsican woman near him was travailing with him who was to be Napoleon!
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. by Various
