travail

English

Alternative forms

• travel, travell (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• enPR: trə-vālʹ, trăvʹāl', IPA^(key): /tɹəˈveɪl/, /ˈtɹævˌeɪl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

Etymology 1

From Middle English travail, from Old French travail (“suffering, torment”), deverbal of travailler, from Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre, from Late Latin tripālium, from Latin tripālis (“held up by three stakes”) from Proto-Italic *trēs + *pākslos from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-. Doublet of travel.

Noun

travail (plural travails or travaux)

1. (literary) Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.
   • 1582 – 1610, Douay Rheims Bible, Book of Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Sirach) XL.1–11:

     Great trauail is created to al men, and an heauie yoke vpon the children of Adam, from the day of their comming forth of their mothers wombe, vntil the day of their burying, into the mother of al.

   • 1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, Book V, §21:

     But as every thing of price, so this doth require travail.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 20, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book II, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:

     Travell and pleasure, most unlike in nature, are notwithstanding followed together by a kind of I wot not what natural conjunction […].

   • 1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber, published 2007, page 38:

     He had thought of making a destiny for himself, through laborious and untiring travail.

   • 2005, Tony Judt, “Culture Wars”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

     And the British mandarin Left, like their contemporaries in the Foreign Office, had little time for the travails of the small countries between Germany and Russia, whom they had always regarded as something of a nuisance.

   • 2022 March 31, Alexis Soloski, “Why the Sudden Urge to Reconsider Famous Women?”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     In the most egregious examples, these stories harness a particular woman’s travails without acknowledging the systems and forces that contributed to her treatment and how these systems persist in our own time.

2. Specifically, the labor of childbirth.
   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. , London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  , published 1609, →OCLC, [Act III, scene chorus]:

     The lady shrieks and, well-a-near,
     Does fall in travail with her fear.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 38:27–28:

     And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that, behold, twins were in her womb. And it came to pass, when she travailed, that the one put out his hand: and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first,

3. (obsolete, countable) An act of working; labor (US), labour (British).
4. (obsolete) The eclipse of a celestial object.
5. Obsolete form of travel.
6. Alternative form of travois (“a kind of sled”)

Related terms

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “travail”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “travail”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Etymology 2

From Middle English travailen, from Old French travaillier, from the noun (see above). Doublet of travel. Displaced native Middle English swinken (“to work”) (from Old English swincan (“to labour, to toil, to work at”)).

Verb

travail (third-person singular simple present travails, present participle travailing, simple past and past participle travailed)

1. To toil.
   • 1552, Hugh Latimer, Fourth Sermon on the Lord's Prayer, Preached before Lady Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk:

     [A]ll slothful persons, which will not travail for their livings, do the will of the devil.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Job 15:20:

     The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.

   • 1714, J[ohn] Gay, “The Proeme to the Courteous Reader”, in The Shepherd’s Week. In Six Pastorals, London: R. Burleigh , →OCLC:

     Other poet travailing in this plain high-way of paſtoral know I none.

2. To go through the labor of childbirth.
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt  (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, John:

     A woman when she traveyleth hath sorowe, be cause her houre is come: but as sone as she is delivered off her chylde she remembreth no moare her anguysshe, for ioye that a man is borne in to the worlde.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 35:16:

     And they iourneyed from Bethel: and there was but a litle way to come to Ephrath; and Rachel traueiled, and she had hard labour.

Translations

Further reading

• Tripalium on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French travail, from Old French travail, deverbal of travailler.

The plural derives from Old French travauz, early travailz, with vocalization of the lateral before a consonant (/tʁavo/ < /tɾaˈvau̯s/ < /tɾaˈvaʎts/).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁa.vaj/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aj
• Homophones: travaille, travaillent, travailles

Noun

travail m (plural travaux or travails)

1. work; labor

   un travail bien fait ― work done well, a job well done

   On se met au travail. ― Let's get to work.

   Remettez-vous au travail. ― Do get to work.

   Il se plonge dans le travail. ― He dives into work.

   Pour la majorité des femmes, le travail commence par des contractions utérine. ― For most women, labor begins with uterine contractions.

2. job
3. workplace

Usage notes

• The less common plural travails is usually only used for the sense of "job."

Synonyms

• boulot, taf, turbin, job

Derived terms

Further reading

• “travail”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French travail.

Noun

travail m (plural travails)

1. suffering; pain

Descendants

• French: travail

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (travail, supplement)

Old French

Etymology

Deverbal from travailler.

Noun

travail oblique singular, m (oblique plural travauz or travailz, nominative singular travauz or travailz, nominative plural travail)

1. suffering, torment

Descendants

• Middle French: travail
  • French: travail
• Norman: travas
• → Middle English: travail
  • English: travail