Noun (1)
after years of toil in a sweatshop, Kim was finally able to start her own dressmaking business Verb
workers toiling in the fields
They were toiling up a steep hill. Noun (2)
a married woman hopelessly caught in the toils of an extramarital affair
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Noun
More than a decade of physical and mental toil has caught up with me.—Literary Hub, 26 June 2025 The pictures, which were taken in twenty-six countries, cover an exotic range of human endeavors, including the production of perfume in Réunion, the quelling of the Kuwaiti oil fires, and, most famously, the toils of gold miners in Serra Pelada, Brazil.—Chris Wiley, New Yorker, 31 May 2025
Verb
One where those who toil in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the day.—Marni Rose McFall, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 June 2025 After years of toiling away at a slew of brands including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, American Eagle Outfitters, Yeezy, Dickies Construct and others, the designer is increasingly being recognized for his own collection.—Miles Socha, Footwear News, 23 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for toil
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English toile, from Anglo-French toyl, from toiller
Verb
Middle English, to argue, struggle, from Anglo-French toiller to make dirty, fight, wrangle, from Latin tudiculare to crush, grind, from tudicula machine for crushing olives, diminutive of tudes hammer; akin to Latin tundere to beat — more at contusion
Noun (2)
Middle French toile cloth, net, from Old French teile, Latin tela cloth on a loom — more at subtle
Middle English toile "battle, argument," derived from early French toyl, "battle, disturbance, confusion," from toiller (verb) "make dirty, fight, wrangle," from Latin tudiculare "crush, grind," from tudicula "machine with hammers for beating olives," from tudes "hammer"
Word Origin
Even though we have machines to do much of our hard work today, much long, hard toil must still be done by hand. Our Modern English word toil, however, comes from a Latin word for a laborsaving machine. The ancient Romans built a machine for crushing olives to produce olive oil. This machine was called a tudicula. This Latin word was formed from the word tudes, meaning "hammer," because the machine had little hammers to crush the olives. From this came the Latin verb tudiculare, meaning "to crush or grind." Early French used this Latin verb as the basis for its verb, spelled toiller, which meant "to make dirty, fight, wrangle." From this came the noun toyl, meaning "battle, disturbance, confusion." This early French noun in time was taken into Middle English as toile, meaning "argument, battle." The earliest sense of our Modern English toil was "a long, hard struggle in battle." It is natural enough that in time this came to be used to refer to any long hard effort.
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