travail

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   painful or laborious effort; the pangs of childbirth

   After much travail they finally reached the summit.

From Old French travail ('work, labor, toil, suffering'), from Vulgar Latin *tripaliare ('to torture'), from Late Latin trepalium, a three-staked instrument of torture, from Latin tripalis ('having three stakes'), from tres ('three') + palus ('stake').

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