toil Hear it!

toil¹ Definition

toil (to̵il)

intransitive verb

  1. to work hard and continuously; labor
  2. to proceed laboriously; advance or move with painful effort or difficulty to toil up a mountain

Etymology: ME toilen < Anglo-Fr toiler, to strive, dispute < OFr toeillier, to pull about, begrime < L tudiculare, to stir about < tudicula, small machine for bruising olives < tudes, mallet < base of tundere, to beat < IE base *(s)teu- > stock, stub

transitive verb

Now Rare to make or accomplish with great effort

noun

  1. Archaic contention; struggle; strife
  2. hard, exhausting work or effort; tiring labor
  3. a task performed by such effort

Etymology: ME toile < Anglo-Fr toil < OFr toeil, turmoil, struggle < the v.

Related Forms:

toil² Definition

toil (to̵il)

noun

  1. Archaic a net for trapping
  2. any snare suggestive of a net

Etymology: OFr toile, a net, web, cloth < L tela, web, woven material < base of texere: see text

toil Synonyms

toil

n.

toil Synonyms

toil

v.

toil Usage Examples

Object

  • tear: To his new colleagues he could offer nothing but " blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
  • mass: Now, permit us to ask: Is the breaking of the A-RC the breaking of the union of the, toiling masses?
  • night: And Simon answered, " Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!
  • day: Man, dis thoo think we did deserve To toil awl day in livin ' tombs.
  • hour: Or the doctor toiling long hours, and not for money.

Adjective modifier

  • daily: The men make or repair the implements for their daily toil.

Adjective complement

  • hard: The farmer was amazed at how fast he worked and wished he could get the mazed yard boy to toil as hard.

Modifying Another Word

  • away: I'll just toil away with the default stuff.
  • hard: The pittance earned by some of these women is earned at the expense of more than only hard toil.
  • daily: In one such operation in Alang, India, alone, 40,000 persons toil daily under the most hazardous occupational conditions outside of warfare.
  • double: Extract 5 2 Witch Double, double toil and trouble: Fire, burn; and caldron bubble.
  • much: How much toil will a mother undergo about her own child?
  • long: Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use.

Followed by an intransitive particle

  • up: We then toiled up to the top to be rewarded by its panoramic view across London.

Preposition: in

  • heat: He toils in the searing heat, breaking rocks into gravel.
  • field: In west Java workers toil in the onion fields under armed police guard.

Preposition: of

  • life: The toils of life I now could undertake, no matter how this planet Earth might quake.
  • day: The two or three 5-minute journeys for water are, after the toil of the day, no real further hardship.

Preposition: under

  • sun: What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun.

Preposition: for

  • year: The Monks toiled away for many years to create these great tomes what would now be created in days by modern technology.
toil Quotes

Yet, when confinement's lingering hour was done, Our sport, our studies, and our souls were one: Together we impell'd the flying ball; Together waited in our tutor's hall; Together join'd in cricket's manly toil.

—Rochdale

Was it for this the clay grew tall? öO what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

—Owen,Wilfred

There is no gilding of setting sun or glamor of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers' wives.

—Garland, (Hannibal) Hamlin

Horny-handed sons of toil.

—Marquis of

Land of our birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be; When we are grown and take our place, As men and women with our race.

—Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

—Gray,Thomas

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

—Tennyson

It is necessary for mortals to be worn with toil.

—Euripides

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.

—Spenser, Edmund

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil† Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wearsman'ssmudgeand sharesman'ssmell: thesoil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

—Hopkins, SirAnthony

Thereal priceofeverything, whateverything reallycosts to themanwho wants to acquire it, isthetoil and trouble of acquiring it. Labour was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things.

—Smith, Adam

Labor omnia vicit improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas. Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.

—Virgil full name Publius Vergilius Maro

Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee: Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Thus must we toil in other men's extremes, That know not how to remedy our own.

—Kyd,Thomas

  Never let success hide its emptiness from you; achievement its nothingness; toil its desolation. Keep alivetheincentivetopushonfurther, that pain inthesoul that drives us beyond ourselves. Do not look back, and do not dream about the future either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward, your destiny are here and now.

—Hammarskjo«  ld, Dag HjalmarAgne Carl

Is there for honest Poverty That hings his head, and a'that; The coward-slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a'that! For a'that, and a'that, Our toils obscure, and a'that, The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a'that.

—Burns, Robert

Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up!

—Cowper,William

   The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor istoil that never finishes, toil that hastobe begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process.

—McCarthy,Joseph R(aymond)

War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour but an empty bubble. Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying, If the world be worth thy winning, Think, oh think, it worth enjoying.

—Dryden,John

The Harper smiled, well pleased; for ne'er Was flattery lost on poet's ear: A simple race! they waste their toil For the vain tribute of a smile.

—Scott, Sir Walter

Since Life is but a Dream, Why toil to no avail?

—Li Po

Why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.

—Dryden,John

Browse dictionary entries near toil

  1. TOH
  2. togs
  3. Togolese
  4. Togoland
  5. Togo
  6. Togliatti
  7. toggling
  8. toggled
  9. toggle switch
  10. toggle joint
  1. toile
  2. toile de Jouy
  3. toiler
  4. toilet
  5. toilet training
  6. toilet water
  7. toiletries
  8. toiletry
  9. toilette
  10. toilful