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

I learned that Dressler’s success had come after decades of triumph and travail.

From New York Times • Mar. 15, 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

He stood and I could see the travail of his spirit in how he took off his glasses and kept polishing them as if they’d never come clean.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez