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View synonyms for travail

travail

[ truh-veyl, trav-eyl ]

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.


verb (used without object)

  1. to suffer the pangs of childbirth; be in labor.
  2. to toil or exert oneself.

travail

/ ˈtræveɪl /

noun

  1. painful or excessive labour or exertion
  2. the pangs of childbirth; labour
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


verb

  1. intr to suffer or labour painfully, esp in childbirth
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of travail1

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 ( tri-, pale 2 ); (noun) Middle English < Old French: suffering, derivative of travailler
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Word History and Origins

Origin of travail1

C13: from Old French travaillier , from Vulgar Latin tripaliāre (unattested) to torture, from Late Latin trepālium instrument of torture, from Latin tripālis having three stakes, from trēs three + pālus stake
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Example Sentences

Nothing symbolizes cryptocurrency’s troubles with regulators as well as the travails of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume.

From Quartz

That the show is able to weave these disparate story lines together as convincingly as it does is a testament to Matafeo’s irresistible invitation to empathize with the bittersweet travails of her character without a hint of self-pity.

Voth worked a perfect ninth one game after closer Brad Hand blew his second save in three appearances and took his second loss over that span, prompting Martinez to issue unequivocal support for his bullpen despite recent travails.

Over the following weeks, the host used his perch on “Cuomo Prime Time” to deliver the headlines about the coronavirus, as well as to narrate his own travails with the disease.

The sport, of course, has endured Woods’s sustained absences — first following leg surgery, then after his personal travails that led to his divorce, then with his back issues.

He sat glum and thoughtful, his mind in unproductive travail, until the captain was announced.

How terrible that perpetual recommencement, that ocean bed, those Danaïdes-like clouds, all that travail and weariness for no end!

From the laborious travail of his brain issued at length an odd mass of arabesques with which the walls were somehow covered.

My nine weary months of arduous travail and half-frantic anticipation were cruelly wasted.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.

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trav.Travancore