TOIL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does toil mean? 

• TOIL (noun)
  The noun TOIL has 1 sense:

1. productive work (especially physical work done for wages)

  Familiarity information: TOIL used as a noun is very rare.

• TOIL (verb)
  The verb TOIL has 1 sense:

1. work hard

  Familiarity information: TOIL used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TOIL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Productive work (especially physical work done for wages)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

labor; labour; toil

Context example:

his labor did not require a great deal of skill

Hypernyms ("toil" is a kind of...):

work (activity directed toward making or doing something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "toil"):

roping (capturing cattle or horses with a lasso)

corvee (unpaid labor (as for the maintenance of roads) required by a lord of his vassals in lieu of taxes)

donkeywork; drudgery; grind; plodding (hard monotonous routine work)

effort; elbow grease; exertion; sweat; travail (use of physical or mental energy; hard work)

hunt; hunting (the work of finding and killing or capturing animals for food or pelts)

hackwork (professional work done according to formula)

haymaking (cutting grass and curing it to make hay)

manual labor; manual labour (labor done with the hands)

overwork; overworking (the act of working too much or too long)

slavery (work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay)

Derivation:

toil (work hard)

• TOIL (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they toil    ... he / she / it toils   
Past simple: toiled   
Past participle: toiled   
-ing form: toiling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Work hard

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

dig; drudge; fag; grind; labor; labour; moil; toil; travail

Context example:

Lexicographers drudge all day long

Hypernyms (to "toil" is one way to...):

do work; work (be employed)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

toil (productive work (especially physical work done for wages))

toiler (one who works strenuously)

 Context examples 

For two weeks we toiled at building a hut.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I see him now—his toil and his despair.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I am surely in the toils.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

White Fang's strength was developed by the long hours on trail and the steady toil at the sled; and it would have seemed that his mental development was well-nigh complete.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, and had no partner in them.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He saw every step which I took to draw my toils round him.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The toil meant nothing to him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He might have been forty years of age, though hard toil and harder pleasure had left their grim marks upon his features.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)