English

Noun

travail ‎(plural travails or travaux)

1. (archaic) Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship. [from 13th c.]
   • Hooker

     As everything of price, so this doth require travail.

   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.20:

     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 2007, p. 38:

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

2. Specifically, the labor of childbirth. [from 13th c.]
3. (obsolete, countable) An act of working; labor (US), labour (British). [14th-18th c.]
4. (obsolete) The eclipse of a celestial object. [17th c.]
5. Obsolete form of travel.
6. Alternative form of travois (a kind of sled)

Translations

References

• J[ohn] A. Simpson and E[dward] S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 978-0-19-861186-8.

Verb

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

1. To toil.
   • Latimer

     slothful persons which will not travail for their livings

2. To go through the labor of childbirth.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, John XIV:

     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.

Translations

French

Etymology

From Middle French travail, from the singular form from Old French travail, from Vulgar Latin tripalium ‎(“torture instrument”), from Latin tripālis ‎(“having three stakes”). Compare Occitan trabalh, Catalan treball, Italian travaglio, Portuguese trabalho, Spanish trabajo.

The plural from Old French travauz, from travailz with l-vocalization before a consonant. The final -auz was later spelled -aux, and the sequence -au-, which once represented a diphthong, now represents an o sound.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁa.vaj/
• Rhymes: -aj
• Homophones: travaille, travaillent, travailles

Noun

travail m ‎(plural travaux)

1. work; labor
2. job
3. workplace

Synonyms

• boulot, taf, turbin, job

Derived terms

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French travail.

Noun

travail m (plural travails)

1. suffering; pain

Descendants

• French: travail

References

• (fr) 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

From Vulgar Latin tripalium ‎(“torture instrument”), from Latin tripālis ‎(“having three stakes”). Compare Occitan trabalh, Catalan treball, Italian travaglio, Portuguese trabalho, Spanish trabajo.

Noun

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

1. suffering, torment

Descendants

• English: travail (borrowed)
• Middle French: travail
  • French: travail
• Norman: travas