Toil
/tɔɪl/noun
Hard, exhausting work or prolonged effort.
Did you know?The word’s earliest forms were tied to twisting and entangling, and in English it later came to mean exhausting labor, as if effort itself had become a kind of trap.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*teu-
“To turn, twist, or swell”
Latin
Latin
tudiculus
“A small hammer or pounding tool (a derivative associated with striking/twisting development in the word’s history)”
Old French
Old French
toile
“A snare, net, or entanglement”
Middle English
English
toilen
“To labor hard; to struggle or exert oneself”
Modern English
English
toil
“Exhausting labor or strenuous effort”