Adjacent Words

Travail definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TRAV'AIL, v.i. [L. trans, over, beyond, and mael, work; Eng. moil.]
1. To labor with pain; to toil.
2. To suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor. Genesis 35.
TRAV'AIL, v.t. To harass; to tire; as troubles sufficient to travail the realm. [Not in use.]
TRAV'AIL, n. Labor with pain; severe toil.
As every thing of price, so doth this require travail.
1. Labor in childbirth; as a severe travail; an easy travail.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child; "she was in labor for six hours" [syn: parturiency, labor, labour, confinement, lying-in, travail, childbed]
2: use of physical or mental energy; hard work; "he got an A for effort"; "they managed only with great exertion" [syn: effort, elbow grease, exertion, travail, sweat] v
1: work hard; "She was digging away at her math homework"; "Lexicographers drudge all day long" [syn: labor, labour, toil, fag, travail, grind, drudge, dig, moil]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from travailler to torment, labor, journey, from Vulgar Latin *trepaliare to torture, from Late Latin trepalium instrument of torture, from Latin tripalis having three stakes, from tri- + palus stake — more at pole Date: 13th century 1. a. work especially of a painful or laborious nature ; toil b. a physical or mental exertion or piece of work ; task, effort c. agony, torment 2. labor, parturition Synonyms: see work II. intransitive verb Date: 13th century 1. to labor hard ; toil 2. labor 3

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. literary --n. 1 painful or laborious effort. 2 the pangs of childbirth. --v.intr. undergo a painful effort, esp. in childbirth. Etymology: ME f. OF travail, travaillier ult. f. med.L trepalium instrument of torture f. L tres three + palus stake

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Travail Tra`vail", n. [Cf. F. travail, a frame for confining a horse, or OF. travail beam, and E. trave, n. Cf. Travail, v. i.] Same as Travois.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Travail Trav"ail (?; 48), n. [F. travail; cf. Pr. trabalh, trebalh, toil, torment, torture; probably from LL. trepalium a place where criminals are tortured, instrument of torture. But the French word may be akin to L. trabs a beam, or have been influenced by a derivative from trabs (cf. Trave). Cf. Travel.] 1. Labor with pain; severe toil or exertion. As everything of price, so this doth require travail. --Hooker. 2. Parturition; labor; as, an easy travail.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Travail Trav"ail, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Travailed; p. pr. & vb. n. Travailing.] [F. travailler, OF. traveillier, travaillier, to labor, toil, torment; cf. Pr. trebalhar to torment, agitate. See Travail, n.] 1. To labor with pain; to toil. [Archaic] ``Slothful persons which will not travail for their livings.'' --Latimer. 2. To suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Travail Trav"ail, v. t. To harass; to tire. [Obs.] As if all these troubles had not been sufficient to travail the realm, a great division fell among the nobility. --Hayward.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(travails) You can refer to unpleasant hard work or difficult problems as travail. (LITERARY) He did whatever he could to ease their travail. N-VAR

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

trav'-al (yaladh (Ge 35:16, etc.), chul, chil (properly "writhe," Job 15:20, etc.); odin (classical odis) (Mt 24:8, etc.), odino (Sirach 19:11, etc.; Ga 4:19, etc.)): "Travail" and its derivatives are used in the primary sense of the labor of childbirth, descriptive of the actual cases of Rachel (Ge 35:16), Tamar (Ge 38:27), Ichabod's mother (1Sa 4:19), and the apocalyptic woman clothed with the sun (Re 12:2). In the majority of passages, however, "travail" is used figuratively, to express extreme and painful sorrow (9 times in Jeremiah), "as of a woman in travail." It is also employed in the sense of irksome and vexatious business (6 times in Ecclesiastes, where it is the rendering of the word `inyan). In the same book "travail" is used to express the toil of one's daily occupation (Ecclesiastes 4:4,6), where it is the translation of `amal. In three places (Ex 18:8; Nu 20:14; La 3:5) where the King James Version has "travel" the Revised Version (British and American) has changed it to "travail," as in these passages the word tela'ah refers to the sense of weariness and toil, rather than to the idea of journeying (in the King James Version the spellings "travel" and "travail" were used indiscriminately; compare Sirach 19:11; 31:5). The sorrows which are the fruits of wickedness are compared to the pain of travail in Job 15:20 (chul) and Ps 7:14 (chabhal), the word used here meaning the torture or twisting pains of labor; see also the fanciful employment of "travail" in Sirach 19:11.

In the New Testament the travail of childbirth is used as the figure of the painful and anxious struggle against the evils of the world in the soul's efforts to attain the higher ideals of the Christian life (Joh 16:21 (tikto); Ro 8:22; Ga 4:27); twice, however, it is the rendering of mochthos, the ordinary word for "toil," "hardship" or "distress" (1Th 2:9; 2Th 3:8).

See BIRTH; LABOR.

Alex. Macalister

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. v. n. 1. Labor with pain, toil. 2. Labor (in childbirth), be in labor, be in travail. II. n. 1. Labor with pain, severe toil. 2. Childbirth, parturition, labor, delivery, bringing forth.

Moby Thesaurus

accouchement, be confined, bear, bear a child, bear young, birth, birth throes, birthing, blessed event, calve, cast, childbearing, childbed, childbirth, confinement, delivery, dig, dirty work, donkeywork, drop, drudge, drudgery, employment, fag, farrow, fatigue, fawn, foal, genesis, give birth, giving birth, grind, grub, hammer, hammer away, handiwork, handwork, hatching, have, have a baby, have young, having a baby, industry, kitten, labor, lamb, lick, lick of work, lie in, litter, manual labor, moil, multiparity, nascency, nativity, pains, parturition, peg, peg away, plod, plug, plug along, plug away, plugging, pound away, pup, rat race, scut work, slavery, slog, spadework, stroke, stroke of work, struggle, sweat, task, the Nativity, the stork, throw, tiresome work, toil, treadmill, wade through, whelp, work, work away, yean