travail

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.

Physical travail being an inexhaustible source of black comedy and a recurring metaphor for the human condition in Beckett’s writing, the depiction of mortal decline is on point.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 9, 2024

Mulaney's second personal travail – which he does not address at all – was his highly publicized divorce from Anna-Marie Tendler and subsequent relationship with Olivia Munn with whom he had a child.

From Salon • May 3, 2023

Forty is a biblical number, used as shorthand for a long period of isolation and travail.

From Washington Post • Nov. 10, 2020

They, and all beings, as the naturalist Henry Beston wrote, are “caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

From New York Times • May 2, 2020

He spoke in the old-fashioned talk, and said with a full voice: “Sir, grant mercy of your great travail that ye have had this day for me and for my Queen.”

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White