struggle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To try very hard to do something difficult.

   She struggled to finish the race in the heat.

2. 2
   verb

   To have a lot of trouble dealing with something.

   Many students struggle with maths at first.

3. 3
   verb

   To move your body hard to get free from something holding you.

   He struggled to escape from the man's grip.

4. 4
   noun

   A hard effort to do or achieve something difficult.

   Getting through the crowd was a real struggle.

From Middle English struglen, stroglen, strogelen, of obscure origin. Cognate with Scots strugil (“to struggle, grapple, contend”). Perhaps from a variant of *strokelen, *stroukelen (> English stroll), from Middle Dutch struyckelen ("to stumble, trip, falter"; > Modern Dutch struikelen), the frequentative form of Old Dutch *strūkon (“to stumble”), from Proto-Germanic *strūkōną, *strūkēną (“to be stiff”), from Proto-Indo-European *strug-, *ster- (“to be stiff; to bristle, strut, stumble, fall”), related to Middle Low German strûkelen ("to stumble"; > Low German strükeln), Old High German strūhh…

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