travail

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The English word travail, in the time of the translators of the Bible had this signification.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. noun Work, especially when arduous or involving painful effort; toil. See Synonyms at work.
  2. noun Tribulation or agony; anguish.
  3. noun The labor of childbirth.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

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Examples (50)

  • SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE Our long travail is almost at an end. —  The Man Shakespeare
  • The immediate fruit of this mental travail was a sudden growth or expansion of his creative powers. —  Beethoven
  • 2: In carnal generation nothing is essential besides a father and a mother: yet to ease the latter in her travail, there is need for a midwife; and for the child to be suitably brought up there is need for a nurse and a tutor: while their place is taken in Baptism by him who raises the child from the sacred font. —  Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition
  • Dismal had been the hour of travail--and she feared her mother's heart would have broken, even when her own was cleft in twain. —  Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2
  • The English word travail, in the time of the translators of the Bible had this signification. —  Five Pebbles from the Brook
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

toil ·  torment ·  vexation ·  anguish ·  privation ·  turmoil ·  strive ·  drudgery ·  peuple ·  affliction ·  unrest ·  perplexity
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from travailler, to work hard, from Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre, to torture with a tripalium, from Late Latin tripālium, instrument of torture, probably from Latin tripālis, having three stakes : tri-, tri- + pālus, stake; see pag- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. An earlier form of travel, now differentiated in a particular use (def. 2): see travel, n.
  2. As with the noun, an earlier form of travel, now differentiated in a particular use (def. 2): see travel, v.
  3. from French travail, a brake, trave, from Middle Latin *trabaculum (also, after Roman, trabale, travallum), a brake, shackle: see travel, n.
 

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/ træˈvæy/
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