“toiled” is a form of
toil
/tɔɪl/ noun, verb
Forms toils toiling toiled toyle
- noun Labour, work, especially of a grueling nature.
- noun Trouble, strife.
- noun (usually in the plural) A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey.
- verb (intransitive) To labour; work.
- verb (intransitive) To struggle.
- verb (transitive) To work (something); often with out.
- verb (transitive) To weary through excessive labour.
Synonyms
derve drudgery swink sweat chores drudgework fatigue razzmatazz scut scutwork travail comp time labor labour fag grind drudge dig moil
Etymology
From Middle English toilen, toylen, apparently a conflation of Anglo-Norman toiller (“to agitate, stir up, entangle”) (compare Old Northern French tooillier, tooullier (“to agitate, stir”); of unknown origin), and Middle English tilyen, telien, teolien, tolen, tolien, tulien (“to till, work, labour”), from Old English tilian, telian, teolian, tiolian (“to exert oneself, toil, work, make, generate, strive after, try, endeavor, procure, obtain, gain, provide, tend, cherish, cultivate, till, plough, trade, traffic, aim at, aspire to, treat, cure”) (compare Middle Dutch tuylen, teulen (“to till, work, labour”)), from Proto-Germanic *tilōną (“to strive, reach for, aim for, hurry”). Cognate with Scots tulyie (“to quarrel, flite, contend”).
An alternate etymology derives Middle English toilen, toylen directly from Middle Dutch tuylen, teulen (“to work, labour, till”), from tuyl ("agriculture, labour, toil"; > Modern Dutch tuil (“toil; work”)). Cognate with Old Frisian teula (“to labour, toil”), teule (“labour, work”), Dutch tuil (“toil, labour”). Compare also Dutch telen (“to grow; raise; cultivate, till”). More at till.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey; --usually in the plural.
- verb To exert strength with pain and fatigue of body or mind, especially of the body, with efforts of some continuance or duration; to labor; to work.
- verb To weary; to overlabor. [Obs.] "Toiled with works of war." Shak.
- verb To labor; to work; --often with out. [R.]
Etymology [F. toiles, pl., toils, nets, fr. toile cloth, canvas, spider web, fr. L. tela any woven stuff, a web, fr. texere to weave. See Text, and cf. Toilet.]
Etymology [OE. toilen to pull about, to toil; of uncertain origin; cf. OD. teulen, tuylen, to labor, till, or OF. tooillier, toailler, to wash, rub (cf. Towel); or perhaps ultimately from the same root as E. tug.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “toil”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details