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toil

noun
/tɔɪl/

Etymology

From Middle English toilen, toylen, apparently a conflation of Anglo-Norman toiller (“to agitate, stir up, entangle”) (compare Old Northern French tooillier, tooullier (“to agitate, stir”); of unknown origin), and Middle English tilyen, telien, teolien, tolen, tolien, tulien (“to till, work, labour”), from Old English tilian, telian, teolian, tiolian (“to exert oneself, toil, work, make, generate, strive after, try, endeavor, procure, obtain, gain, provide, tend, cherish, cultivate, till, plough, trade, traffic, aim at, aspire to, treat, cure”) (compare Middle Dutch tuylen, teulen (“to till, work, labour”)), from Proto-Germanic *tilōną (“to strive, reach for, aim for, hurry”). Cognate with Scots tulyie (“to quarrel, flite, contend”). An alternate etymology derives Middle English toilen, toylen directly from Middle Dutch tuylen, teulen (“to work, labour, till”), from tuyl ("agriculture, labour, toil"; > Modern Dutch tuil (“toil; work”)). Cognate with Old Frisian teula (“to labour, toil”), teule (“labour, work”), Dutch tuil (“toil, labour”). Compare also Dutch telen (“to grow; raise; cultivate, till”). More at till.

  1. derived from tuylen, teulen
  2. inherited from *tilōną✻
  3. inherited from tilian, telian, teolian, tiolian
  4. inherited from tilyen, telien, teolien, tolen, tolien, tulien
  5. derived from toiller
  6. inherited from toilen, toylen

Definitions

  1. Labour, work, especially of a grueling nature.

    • […] he set to work again and made the snow fly in all directions around him. After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby door-mat lay exposed to view.

  2. Trouble, strife.

  3. A net or snare

    A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey.

    • Then toils for beasts, and lime for birds, were found.
    • I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag-like swiftness.
    • That I was going to sit still, and let you sulk, while mademoiselle walked blindfold into the toils?
  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. To labour

      To labour; work.

    2. To struggle.

    3. To work (something)

      To work (something); often with out.

      • places well toiled and husbanded
      • [I] toiled out my uncouth passage.

    4. To weary through excessive labour.

      • toiled with works of war

    5. Initialism of time off in lieu (of monetary compensation for overtime).

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at toil. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01toil02strife03conflict04clash05match06baseball07wins08win

A definitional loop anchored at toil. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at toil

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA