overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

travail.

Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tɹəˈveɪl//ˈtɹæˌveɪl/

  1. Arduous or painful exertion; excessive labor, suffering, hardship.

    literary

  2. Specifically, the labor of childbirth.

  3. An act of working; labor (US), labour (British).

    countable · obsolete

  4. The eclipse of a celestial object.

    obsolete

  5. Obsolete form of travel.

    alt-of · obsolete

  6. Alternative form of travois (“a kind of sled”)

    alt-of · alternative
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tréyes Proto-Indo-European *tri- Proto-Italic *tri- Latin tri- Latin pālus Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂der.? Proto-Italic *-is Latin -is Latin tripālis Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -iusnom. Latin -ium ▲ Byzantine Greek τριπάσσαλον (tripássalon)calq.? Latin tripālium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -āre Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre Old French travaillerdeverb. Old French travailbor. Middle English travail English travail Inherited from Middle English travail, borrowed from Old French travail (“suffering, torment”), deverbal from travailler, from Vulgar Latin *tripāliāre (“to torment”), from Latin tripālium (“torture device”) + -āre (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of travel and travois.

verb/tɹəˈveɪl//ˈtɹæˌveɪl/

  1. To toil.

  2. To go through the labor of childbirth.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English travailen, from Old French travailler, 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”)).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

travail has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

travail studiotravail workshello, travail

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.