travail
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
PronunciationEdit
- enPR: trə-vālʹ, trăvʹāl', IPA(key): /tɹəˈveɪl/, /ˈtɹævˌeɪl/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪl
Etymology 1Edit
PIE word |
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*tréyes |
From Middle English travail, from Old French travail (“suffering, torment”), from Vulgar Latin *tripaliō (“to torture; suffer, toil”) from Late Latin trepālium (“an instrument of torture”) from Latin tripālis (“held up by three stakes”) from Proto-Italic *trēs + *pākslos from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-. Doublet of travel.
NounEdit
travail (plural travails or travaux)
- (literary) Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship. [from 13th c.]
- 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[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- 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.
- 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[1], ISSN 0362-4331:
- 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.
- Specifically, the labor of childbirth. [from 13th c.]
- 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 78596089, [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 964384981, 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,
- (obsolete, countable) An act of working; labor (US), labour (British). [14th–18th c.]
- (obsolete) The eclipse of a celestial object. [17th c.]
- Obsolete form of travel.
- Alternative form of travois (“a kind of sled”)
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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ReferencesEdit
- “travail”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.
- Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “travail”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Etymology 2Edit
From Middle English travailen, from Old French travaillier, from the noun (see above). Displaced native Middle English swinken (“to work”) (from Old English swincan (“to labour, to toil, to work at”)).
VerbEdit
travail (third-person singular simple present travails, present participle travailing, simple past and past participle travailed)
- 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 964384981, 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 22942401:
- Other poet travailing in this plain high-way of paſtoral know I none.
- 1552, Hugh Latimer, "Fourth Sermon on the Lord's Prayer, Preached before Lady Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk":
- To go through the labor of childbirth.
- 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], OCLC 762018299, 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.
TranslationsEdit
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Further readingEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle French travail, from the singular form from Old French travail from Vulgar Latin *tripaliō (“to torture; suffer, toil”) from Late Latin trepālium (“an instrument of torture”) from Latin tripālis (“held up by three stakes”). Compare Occitan trabalh, Catalan treball, English travail, 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.
PronunciationEdit
- IPA(key): /tʁa.vaj/
Audio (France, Paris) (file) Audio (Paris) (file) - Rhymes: -aj
- Homophones: travaille, travaillent, travailles
NounEdit
travail m (plural travaux or travails)
- 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. ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
- job
- workplace
Usage notesEdit
- The less common plural travails is usually only used for the sense of "job."
SynonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
- accident de travail
- accident du travail
- arrêt de travail
- à travail égal, salaire égal
- bourreau de travail
- camp de travail
- certificat de travail
- contrat de travail
- contrôleur des travaux finis
- droit du travail
- et voilà le travail
- fête du Travail
- flux de travaux
- groupe de travail
- inspecteur des travaux finis
- langue de travail
- lieu de travail
- marché du travail
- mémoire de travail
- permis de travail
- plan de travail
- poste de travail
- tout travail mérite salaire
- travail à la chaîne
- travail au noir
- travail d'arabe
- travail de bénédictin
- travail de cochon
- travail de Romain
- travail d'intérêt général
- travail, famille, patrie
- travail forcé
- travailler
- travailleur
- travailliste
- travaux forcés
Further readingEdit
- “travail”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Middle FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Old French travail.
NounEdit
travail m (plural travails)
DescendantsEdit
- French: travail
ReferencesEdit
- Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (travail, supplement)
Old FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Vulgar Latin *tripaliō (“to torture; suffer, toil”) from Late Latin trepālium (“an instrument of torture”) from Latin tripālis (“held up by three stakes”). Compare Occitan trabalh, Catalan treball, Italian travaglio, Portuguese trabalho, Spanish trabajo.
NounEdit
travail m (oblique plural travauz or travailz, nominative singular travauz or travailz, nominative plural travail)