Travail Meaning

/tɹəˈveɪl/
C1

Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounArduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.

nounSpecifically, the labor of childbirth.

They finally succeeded after many months of travail.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The long journey through the desert was a ____ of exhaustion and thirst for the travelers.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
After many long months of ____ and hard work, the team finally finished the project and celebrated their success today.

Possible appearance of a tripalium Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tréyes Proto-Indo-European *tri- Proto-Italic *tri- Latin tri- Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-der. Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-slos Proto-Italic *pākslos Latin pālus Latin -is Latin tripālis Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ium Byzantine Greek τριπάσσαλον (tripássalon)calq.? Vulgar Latin tripālium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Vulgar Latin -āre Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre Old French travaillerdeverb. Old French travailbor. Middle English travail English travail Inherited from Middle English travail, borrowed from Old French travail (“suffering, torment”), deverbal from travailler, from Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre (“to torment”), from tripālium (“torture device”) + -āre (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of travel and travois.

"Great trauail is created to al men, and an heauie yoke vpon the children of Adam, from the day of their comming forth of their mothers wombe, vntil the day of their burying, into the mother of al. […]" — 1582 – 1610, Douay Rheims Bible, Book of Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Sirach) XL.1–11
"But as every thing of price, so this doth require travail." — 1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, Book V, §21:
"Travell and pleasure, most unlike in nature, are notwithstanding followed together by a kind of I wot not what natural conjunction[…]." — 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 20, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
"But I know that to-day there are great questions calling for an answer, wrongs clamoring to be righted, a people in travail that pleads for ease!" — 1919, Stanley J. Weyman, “XIII Peter Pauper”, in The Great House:
"He had thought of making a destiny for himself, through laborious and untiring travail." — 1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber, published 2007, page 38:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
The long journey through the desert was a ____ of exhaustion and thirst for the travelers.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
After many long months of ____ and hard work, the team finally finished the project and celebrated their success today.

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