toil

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To labor continuously; work strenuously.
2. v. To proceed with difficulty: toiling over the mountains.
3. n. Exhausting labor or effort: "A bit of the blackest and coarsest bread is . . . the sole recompense and the sole profit attaching to so arduous a toil” ( George Sand). See Synonyms at work.
4. n. Archaic Strife; contention.
5. n. Something that binds, snares, or entangles one; an entrapment. Often used in the plural: caught in the toils of despair.
6. n. Archaic A net for trapping game.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In the toils, ensnared; captured.
2. To pull about; tug; drag.
3. To harass; weary or exhaust by toil: often used reflexively (whence later, by omission of the reflexive pronoun, the intransitive use): sometimes with out.
4. To labor; work; till.
5. To work, especially for a considerable time, and with great or painful fatigue of body or mind; labor.
6. To move or travel with difficulty, weariness, or pain.
7. Synonyms To drudge, moil, strive. See the noun.
8. n. Confusion; turmoil; uproar; struggle; tussle.
9. n. Harassing labor; labor accompanied with fatigue and pain; exhausting effort.
10. n. A work accomplished; an achievement.
11. n. Synonyms Labor, Drudgery, etc. (see work, n.); effort, exertion, pains.
12. n. A net, snare, or gin; any web, cord, or thread spread for taking prey.

Wiktionary

1. n. labour, work
2. n. trouble, strife
3. n. A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey; usually in the plural.
4. v. intransitive To labour; work.
5. v. intransitive To struggle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey; -- usually in the plural.
2. v. To exert strength with pain and fatigue of body or mind, especially of the body, with efforts of some continuance or duration; to labor; to work.
3. v. obsolete To weary; to overlabor.
4. v. rare To labor; to work; -- often with out.
5. n. Labor with pain and fatigue; labor that oppresses the body or mind, esp. the body.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. productive work (especially physical work done for wages)
2. v. work hard