Definition

1. Noun:

   • Hard work, strenuous effort: "Travail" refers to the use of physical or mental energy in a difficult, laborious, or painful task.
   • The labor of childbirth: In a medical or formal context, "travail" specifically denotes the process and pain of giving birth, from the onset of contractions to delivery.

2. Verb:

   • To work strenuously, to toil: "Travail" means to engage in hard, exhausting work or to struggle with a difficult task.

Usage Examples

• Noun:

  • The artist's masterpiece was the result of years of creative travail.
  • After many hours of travail, she finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

• Verb:

  • The farmers travailed in the fields from dawn until dusk.
  • She travailed over the complex legal document for weeks.

Advanced Usage

• "The travails of...": This phrase is often used to describe the series of difficult experiences or hardships associated with a particular endeavor, period, or group.
  • The book chronicles the travails of the early settlers.
  • He spoke about the financial travails of starting his own business.

Variants and Related Words

• Travails (n, plural): Often used to mean a series of arduous experiences or hardships.
  • The company survived its early travails to become a market leader.

Synonyms

• Noun (effort): Toil, labor, exertion, struggle, drudgery.
• Noun (childbirth): Labor, parturition, delivery.
• Verb: Toil, labor, struggle, drudge, slave.

Related Phrases

• In travail: Experiencing the pains of childbirth; (figuratively) undergoing a difficult creative or formative process.
  • The nation was in travail, struggling to form a new government after the revolution.

Notes on Usage

• The word "travail" is more formal and literary than its synonyms like "hard work" or "toil." It often carries a connotation of suffering, pain, or prolonged struggle.
• While the verb form is grammatically correct, it is less commonly used in everyday modern English than the noun form. The noun, especially in its plural form "travails," is more frequently encountered.

Noun

1. use of physical or mental energy; hard work
   • he got an A for effort
   • they managed only with great exertion
2. concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child
   • she was in labor for six hours

Verb

1. work hard
   • She was digging away at her math homework
   • Lexicographers drudge all day long