as in tangle
something that catches and holds
a married woman hopelessly caught in the toils of an extramarital affair
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in labors
to devote serious and sustained effort
toiled for many years on the mammoth outdoor sculpture
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for toils
Noun
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At the river’s edge, a quarter-mile-long Mitsubishi factory was a mountainous tangle of steel.—
Charles Pellegrino,
Rolling Stone,
6 Aug. 2025 -
In contrast with the tangle of criminal cases which mostly stalled against Trump, Brazilian courts moved swiftly against Bolsonaro, threatening to end his political career and fracture his right-wing movement.—
Ricardo Brito,
USA Today,
5 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
This photograph shows a mosquito trap as part of the fight against the Chikungunya pandemic by mosquitoes in Saint-Benoit on the French overseas island of La Reunion on April 22.—
Hollie Silverman,
MSNBC Newsweek,
2 Aug. 2025
-
Cleanup brush and leaf piles, which provide excellent cover for voles. Use a trap.—
Arricca Elin SanSone,
Southern Living,
2 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
Additionally, the jail struggles to provide adequate food, and unsanitary food distribution practices have left detainees vulnerable to malnutrition, pest infestations and other harms.—
Dan Perry,
Newsweek,
4 Jan. 2025
-
But Moore sometimes struggles to take responsibility in the way expected of leaders.—
Colin Pascal,
Baltimore Sun,
2 Jan. 2025
Noun
-
They would then be redirected to their bank, which would not know which web site the request had some from, and required to log in.—
David G.W. Birch,
Forbes.com,
6 Aug. 2025
-
In the end, Rothstein—a master spider—was ensnared in a web even more ingenious than his own, woven, maddeningly, by lesser spiders.—
Adam Gopnik,
New Yorker,
4 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
Eggers and his go-to production designer Craig Lathrop also put a unique emphasis on building realistic worlds—their production design strives extra hard to close gaps between Eggers’s olden aesthetic and the modern audience’s perception.—
Maya Ibbitson,
Architectural Digest,
23 Dec. 2024
-
The company strives to be more than just a pet product brand.—
FunnyFuzzy Contributor,
Forbes,
23 Dec. 2024
Noun
-
Devon would be a welcome way out of all this entanglement, but can James see a path forward with Dani?—
Ryan Coleman Published,
EW.com,
11 Aug. 2025
-
Many foreign leaders, lobbyists, and executives who might otherwise have paid handsomely for the Trump hotel’s location and luxury stayed elsewhere, fearing entanglement in an influence scandal.—
David D. Kirkpatrick,
New Yorker,
11 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
The former calls for a counterfactual view of how testing works; the latter calls for political will and policy ideas not currently in evidence.—
Peter Greene,
Forbes,
30 Nov. 2024
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The office also works with the Connecticut State Police Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit, which investigates the cause and origin of fires and arson.—
Sean Krofssik,
Hartford Courant,
30 Nov. 2024
Noun
-
Utilizing cameras to target offenders can both help the police deploy limited resources efficiently and — when combined with facial recognition or bike-registration data — snare offenders remotely.—
Steve Cohen,
New York Daily News,
13 July 2025
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The absence of lobster traps and not being poked and prodded by divers armed with snares, tickle sticks and nets for nearly four months usually results in an abundance of bugs, a term that refers to the insect-like appearance of lobsters.—
Steve Waters,
Miami Herald,
5 July 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Toils.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/toils. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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