toiling

toil ¹  (toil)

intr.v. toiled, toil·ing, toils

1. To labor continuously; work strenuously.

2. To proceed with difficulty: toiling over the mountains.

n.

1. Exhausting labor or effort: "A bit of the blackest and coarsest bread is . . . the sole recompense and the sole profit attaching to so arduous a toil" (George Sand). See Synonyms at work.

2. Archaic Strife; contention.

---

[Middle English toilen, from Anglo-Norman toiler, to stir about, from Latin tudiculre, from tudicula, a machine for bruising olives, diminutive of tudes, hammer.]

---

toiler n.

---

toil ²  (toil)

n.

1. Something that binds, snares, or entangles one; an entrapment. Often used in the plural: caught in the toils of despair.

2. Archaic A net for trapping game.

---

[French toile, cloth, from Old French teile, from Latin tla, web; see teks- in Indo-European roots.]

Thesaurus

Adj.

1.

toiling - doing arduous or unpleasant work; "drudging peasants"; "the bent backs of laboring slaves picking cotton"; "toiling coal miners in the black deeps" drudging, laboring, labouring busy - actively or fully engaged or occupied; "busy with her work"; "a busy man"; "too busy to eat lunch"