toil

Meanings

Noun

• Labour, work, especially of a grueling nature.
• Trouble, strife.
• A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey.

Verb

• To labour; work.
• To struggle.
• To work (something); often with out.
• To weary through excessive labour.

Origin

• 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").
• . Cognate with Old Frisian teula ("to labour, toil"), teule, Dutch tuil. Compare also Dutch telen. More at till.