toil
Usage
What are other ways to say toil?
Toil suggests wearying or exhausting labor: toil that breaks down the worker's health. Drudgery suggests continuous, dreary, and dispiriting work, especially of a menial or servile kind: the drudgery of household tasks. Labor particularly denotes hard manual work: backbreaking labor; arduous labor. Work is the general word and may apply to exertion that is either easy or hard: fun work; heavy work.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Escaping the dirt and sweaty toil of the farm was her goal.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026
Most toil on the building sites of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia or in hotels and factories there, while others work in India and Malaysia.
From Barron's • Feb. 16, 2026
For 77 minutes the United head coach watched his players toil.
From BBC • Nov. 24, 2025
But many of them toil in punishing and dangerous conditions, and the state is failing to ensure their health and safety, an investigation by Capital & Main has found.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025
For that day we all must labour, Though we die before it break; Cows and horses, geese and turkeys, All must toil for freedom's sake.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
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Vocabulary lists containing toil
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Labor Day Lexicon: Words That Put You To Work
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Animal Farm
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